Uncertain times? Definitely, but its not all depressing.

Bradley Johnson and Kevin Brown, in their introduction to Ad Age’s annual 2009, looks at how marketers still launch new products, campaigns, and tweak marketing messages even in major recessions.

Here are some strategies marketers could adopt in this down time.

1) Targeted rather than mass marketing.

Most have already made the leap towards sending marketing messages that are relevant and customized to each individual, but those that haven’t/ refuse to will likely lose out in 2009.

Targeted messaging creating campaigns that are relevant to each segment and each individual in your datalist. Customizing everything from messaging to the offer and design.

2) Build marketing applications.

Applications add variety to your marketing message and can help brands build better relationships with their customers. They can be as simple as Facebook applications, interactive games or content aggregators that work through viral marketing.

Read: Applications- The next wave of marketing.

2009 will be a year where marketing has to find more innovative and cost-efficient ways to connect with the customer. Competing on price may not be sufficient in the fledgling economy.

3) Quality in direct mail not quantity

Suzanne Obermire, reports news of a postal slump for the USPS in volume and revenue. Sending direct-mail isn’t cheap and with decreasing marketing budgets, they have to be used more effectively with other mediums through interactive campaigns.

4) Measuring effectiveness of marketing

One of Seth Godin’s first 2009 blog posts has to do with ensuring ads work. No longer can marketers run ads they don’t measure or track. The same level of analytics that we associate with adwords campaigns, will be necessary to measure response from email, web, print and direct mail campaigns.