Learn from Goodyear Tire how to stay ahead of the curve by marketing during a recession, and keep these three pointers in mind as you launch marketing campaigns over the months ahead.

Conventional wisdom (CW) holds that the all-but-official recession will represent an unqualified boom to e-marketers of all stripes. Tough times, CW says, will force marketers to take dollars out of expensive and hard-to-quantify media such as TV and print and invest it more cagily in cheap and accountable e-media.

As a result, e-media service providers and their corporate patrons smile at each other, comfortable with the confidence that only a recession-proof business model can bring.

My regular readers know that I am not one to embrace conventional wisdom. So let's tear it apart once again, shall we?

First off, I've seen more than a few business downturns -- I've learned through hard experience that budgets do not magically re-allocate during a recession. Some organizations may cut all marketing spend by a flat percentage across the board, reducing everything from network TV to transit posters. So don't expect that fat budget cut from broadcast media to fall into your digital lap. 

That said, you digital media champions will have a much better numbers story to tell than your colleagues still rooted in mass media when it comes to fighting for budget. Utilizing metrics will allow you to show exactly how many people made it through which steps in the conversion funnel, and it will allow you to make a compelling argument for email, search, online acquisition or any other e-medium.

It would be relatively easy to use this upcoming time of difficulty to succeed by doing what everybody knows that digital media do best -- completing the sale. Digital's already bright light will shine even more brightly as other media begin to dim and organizations' need for revenue becomes even more dire. However, smart marketers should resist the temptation to merely invest in acquisition and conversion projects. Soon, e-marketers of all stripes will have the opportunity to prove what they can really do.

Allow me to reach back into history for an example. During World War II Goodyear Tire advertised heavily in consumer print. Meanwhile, the government rationed tires to ensure a good supply for the military and war-related industry, so Goodyear had almost nothing to sell to the general public. The ads featured tips on extending tire wear or examples of how Goodyear's products helped American fighting men.

After the war, Goodyear's enhanced public profile allowed it to shoot past Firestone, the pre-war U.S. tire sales leader, to become the number one tire brand, a position it still holds today. Simply put, what Goodyear did was make a bold move when its competitors retrenched.

E-marketers should follow in Goodyear's treads by expanding the boundaries of e-marketing. In no particular order I have posed some challenges to consider in the upcoming months, and I have also taken the liberty to make a few suggestions for how marketers should utilize social media, multi-e-channels and behavioral marketing to promote ones brand. 

• What e-media can aspire to make the branding impact of broadcast television? Video. Already we've seen a handful of viral videos break through and turn YouTube into a serious channel for establishing a brand: Smirnoff's "Tea Partay," Nike's free-running video and others.

Can other e-media provide a measurable brand impact? Of course they can! Some of you are already sending out emails fully infused with brand voice and great content. Social media and attendant technology like widgets give marketers the ability to bring themselves directly to consumers. The challenge lies not so much in making these and other e-media suitable for branding, but rather in measuring brand impact. Kudos to the marketers out there who use surveys or measurement methodologies that allow you to show the precise impact of non-traditional media. And for those of you who don't, get cracking!

• Will some large marketer successfully challenge the top-down model? Many marketers still cling to this model of marketing communications, in which a mass media ad acts as the entry point for a communications stream followed up in e-channels. 

By coordinating acquisition media such as search, many marketers currently generate a critical mass of consumers who can receive regular communications through e-channels. Why can't this work on an even larger scale? Expand acquisition from search to the store and even to mobile channels and the number of consumers engaged can increase geometrically. A few brands have made a big deal out of launching online without offline media, but none has made a continuing commitment to keeping up the brand heat without traditional media.

• Who's going to create a campaign that uses "invasive" technologies in a way that the consumer sees as a true benefit? Consumer media often regard e-media innovations -- such as behavioral targeting, site analytics and other technologies -- as intrusive, even threatening. As marketers, we understand these technologies' business value. 

Consumers already enjoy the conveniences afforded by cookies and their ability to pre-fill information on a web page. TiVo, in fact, uses a form of behavioral filtering to help select programs that individual owners might like, a feature these owners often love. When will marketers make this kind of technology a selling point for participating in a campaign? I await the first email from a friend that says "opt into this campaign; its intelligence allows it to tailor to your needs."

As the economic situation continues to deteriorate, let us show the marketing world that digital deserves more than a place at the table. Let's aim for the head of that table by utilizing metrics technology, strategically placing content in multiple e-channels, and personalizing our campaigns so as to target key audiences and successfully strengthen our brands.

We need to resist the temptation to live off gains from the fat years and not shrink to the thought of financial woes. Instead, let's use Good Year as an example and get smart in our marketing and utilize all of the "new" tools out there.

Chris Marriott is vice president and GM, Eastern Region, Acxiom Digital. Read full bio.