Ignition - Inspired Thinking
More on “marketing in a recession”
March 18, 2009 at 11:55 pm | In Sales & Marketing
Our monthly seminars on how to market your business through the recession have been getting really good feedback. For those who can’t attend, here’s some of the main points:
Recessions provide real opportunities – there’s always reduced “noise” in a recession, which means that new products and services will have greater impact.
Instead of focusing on tactics to manipulate customers in a recession, focus on how your customer needs or wants have changed (because they will have!). Ask “what do my customers want in a recession. What problems can I solve for them?” – NOT “how can I sell them more of my stuff?”.
You must set aside a marketing budget - however small. This will actually SAVE you money because of the 5P’s (Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance).
Focus on getting faster rather than getting perfect - costs rise as projects and campaigns get bogged down in detail and you need to be quick off the mark.
Don’t assume too much - customer responses to economic problems are not pre-determined - price is not always a major concern.
Now is the time to really ensure that you follow all your marketing plans right through to the very end. You can’t afford to lose interest or let it drop down the list of priorities. Remember 3 out of every 5 campaigns are never finished – make sure yours are, and you’ll always be one step ahead of the competition.
Remember you’ve got a 70% chance of selling more to existing customers, a 40% chance with lapsed customers and just a 25% chance of getting business from a new customer – so get your priorities right!
Now is a great time to really reward customer loyalty - pleasing customers doesn’t have to be expensive, just surprising.
Remember when you do get face to face with a prospect YOU ARE NOT THERE TO SELL – YOU ARE THERE TO SOLVE A PROBLEM. Concentrate on finding the prospects’ “pain” and on finding a solution to them.
If you’re reading this and you’ve not been to one of our seminars, we’d love to see you at the next one. Give us a call, send us an email or fill in the form on our website.