Dollar Cost Averaging is defined as an investment strategy which "reduces the risk of incurring a substantial loss resulting from investing (an) entire 'lump sum'" by "dividing the total sum to be invested in the market into equal amounts put into the market at regular intervals." (Wikipedia) 

In essence, the technique works in markets undergoing temporary declines because it exposes only part of the total sum to the decline. The technique is so-called because of its potential for reducing the average cost of shares bought. As the amount of shares that can be bought for a fixed amount of money varies inversely with their price, DCA effectively leads to more shares being purchased when their price is low and fewer when they are expensive. As a result, DCA can lower the total average cost per share of the investment, giving the investor a lower overall cost for the shares purchased over time.

I believe this principle can apply to B2B marketing as well.

Imagine if you were to spend an equal amount on marketing, or a specific type of marketing, over the course of some time, say each month for a year.  There may be good months in your industry, and bad months, generally.

The benefits of dollar cost marketing would be that your competitors understand this cycle too, and may not market at all during the down times.  Using this logic, you may have fewer “buyers”, but you would have little to no competition, at least for mindshare and interest.

Certainly, dollar cost B2B marketing would not help with poor value propositions and delivery struggles.  However, ceteris paribus, it could provide that extra marketing boost we are always looking for.

-Ed

(Ed Trachier is Founder & CEO of OnTarget Partners, and can be reached at 469-200-4901, or via email at trachier@ontargetpartners.com.)