What To Do in a Recession

Companies across the board are scrambling to retain any resemblance of what their enterprise consisted of mere months ago. What your business used to count on for years seems to be as reliable as keeping a full scoop of dry sand in your hand. Those norms once so common have melted away to the point where you are questioning even the very foundations of your business model.

Instead of scrapping the many years of the expense of capturing the market share you had; instead of totally abandoning your focus on your niche that you have been servicing so well, you need to find the way you can salvage all that hard work! Especially for those business owners large and small who have survived the start-up failure time frames of three years.

Keep in mind that those customers you have worked so hard to attain haven’t gone away; they are just spending less in this economy. They are still your champions, they still find value in what you offer them; they just have slowed the frequency in which they buy from you. Important all the more if the niche you service has quick turnarounds in the replenishing need of the product or service.

So, those of us in that boat, what are we to do to even simply maintain the levels that we are currently experiencing? If they are just not enough to sustain our operations for much longer, how do you get it to start sprouting and growing once again?

The answer, however complex on the outside it may seem, on the inside it is the easiest to address. Just ask yourself, with limited funds for the many needs you have, which establishment would you spend your money at? One that has what you need, or a business that has what we need AND we feel welcomed and appreciated? If everything were even-stevens in quality and price, to which one would you go?

It is those businesses, which survive and thrive in times like these, are the ones who stand out, keep their products and services ever in front of the clientele. In all, who are best apt to keep Top-of-the-Mind Awareness in the minds of their customers. It is how you do that vital task that will determine if you survive or fail in this economic climate.

The following are only a few ways you can do just that:

• Communicate how you value them by offering them real value – This value cannot be ‘chincy’ either. The perceived value is what will represent in their minds how you prize their business. If you give real value that will be reflected in your response to your offer.

• Go the extra mile, just because! – How does it feel when someone else goes the extra mile for you? Do it, because they are who they are, your bread and butter! When they feel truly valued they will get away from the price factor and get deeply into the loyalty factor.

• When they are in the office/store give them a compelling reason to come back. – Now it isn’t all about pumpkin cookies and cider, this is giving to your customers’ logical side the mental ammunition when the next decision comes down to using their already stretched dollars with you or your competitors. Make pointing out what they receive by doing business with you, simple, and compelling. Even if it’s the message only that you value them higher than others with which they can do business.

• Establish methods for feedback. – You always feel more connected when those you do business with asks for your opinion, your customers are the same. This is a great way to gauge your efforts to reach out, and the honest feeling of those who do business with you.

All of this is designed to do three main things. To keep you in the front of the mind when the money spending decision occurs; to deepen the ties that bind us, from proprietor to customer increasing the loyalty to what your business represent; creating additional touch points for you to reach out to those who you depend on for your company.

By successfully accomplishing this with a Customer Appreciation Campaign, you will be able to realize the stabilization of your income and the increase of your bottom line from the lean months you’ve experienced recently.

Find out more about a customized Customer Appreciation Campaign by clicking here!

The Worth of a Professional on Your Project

Everyone thinks they can get the money without the hard work. This is no better illustrated than in the Marketing Efforts in business. I cannot enumerate how many times I have come across a small business or even a burgeoning business yearning to break out of their boundaries who have turned ther most important factor for growth and profits to their nephew or cousin named Jimmy or Danny who can, “Do things on the Internet.”

Sure! Why not hand over the engine that feeds your business; that moves people to become lifelong and loyal customers; which means the triumph or failure of all you have built up to an untrained mind that;s working and living out of their parents basement. To do such a thing is equivalent of doing a few rounds of Russian Roulette with all but one chamber filled with the “Mistake Bullet” that will snuff out your business.

I’m the frst to admit that oftentimes Marketing is like throwing wet spaghetti against a wall to see what sticks. However it takes a trained Marketing Professional to know which type of flour to use for those noodle strands to most readily adhere to the wall once in contact. It takes experience to know the throwing strategies and techniques to use to maximize surface coverage. Likewise, it takes a honed mind to know the ingredients to place in the water of Preparation used in making the spaghetti softened to stick.

Large corporations have found out that you must get those who have “been there and done that” when it comes to communicating their messages to thosw who will make the difference for their bottom lines. Marketing is the life blood of the business, the main mechanism that pumps into the company the new, the more, and the more profitable. Accounting makes sure things are stable, Fulfilment keeps Customer Satisfaction, but it is Marketing that keep everything alive and thriving.

The Profitable Question that faces every business large and small is; What Marketing Strategies and Tactics will get that Desired End Result? How Can we implement them? How can we measure our results?

Can Cousin Danny do that effectively? There’s a chance, that you can hit a home run off a major league pitcher’s fastball – heck, it’s possible you can even get a hole-in-one on a par 5. Sure there is always a chance an unexperienced relative (person) could stumble upon success – but it’s not bloody-well likely!

“Big jobs usually go to the men who prove their ability to outgrow small ones.” (Ralph Waldo Emerson) You wouldn’t go to a welder to paint a da Vinci, just the same keep your nephew Jimmy at the yearly reunions and get a Professional for the Marketing success you want.