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.

Newspapers Still a Viable Marketing Tool?

Recently a report came out (click here for link) detailing the circulation for the major metro newspapers are down, in some cases by double digits. This news comes on the heels of the ongoing news that more and more Americans and individuals across the globe are going to other sources for their news day.

The prowess, and the rates the large newspapers used to demand are no longer the norm. Many are near to completely collapsing their rate cards for their advertising. The ever powerful classifieds have now been usurped by the likes of Craigslist, and Google has been doing it’s best to cut into the long held belief that to gain marketshare, newspaper is an excellent way to accomplish that.

We pose the question once again, “Are newspapers still a viable Marketing tool?” The answer is … it depends. In times past it was a no brainer to add into your Marketing mix the tangent of Newspaper and the articles, ads, and classifieds. With this change of newspaper readership, it all now depends on which target audience you have in mind.

If you are trying to hit the trendsetter, the one who is the early adopter of a new product or someone under the age of 45 then do not rely on Newspaper. The Target Demographic is the older set, which sit down after a day at work, or in their retirement, and read their hard copy newspapers. Those who grew up watching their parents do the same, and have not had the influence of a computer in their workspace or lifespace, if these individuals are who you need to reach, by all means, hard copy newspaper is still where you can get to them.

However, if your demographic is not in that older set, in the older baby boomers group, newspapers are where you need to be, but only their Online Editions. People still go to a newspaper, and sometimes many times a day, but they do it Online. Getting the byline, or a Text Link, or placing an Ad on their home page is much more effective for this demographic than having anything hard copy.

This knowledge unfortunately places us into another question, “If not just newspapers then where are they going to get their information?” That is a question for each Marketing Professional gets paid to answer!

Marketing Dysfunction

I’ve recently become acquainted with the Marketing efforts of a certain company and it sure takes the cake from Crazytown. Without naming names and embarrassing them to no end with this biting and poignant commentary, I have chosen to change the names of the company and the main characters of the company to protect them from their own industry and their own imbecility.

To be fair, they truly don’t know how moronically ineffective their Corporate Marketing has become. The main protagonist, whom I will call Yasser… just Yasser… is busy trying to run his business the best he knows how. Even though he has been in sales, and successful in it over the last few decades, the degeneration of the company’s presence, it’s messages, and the vehicles used to convey those messages has been epic.

His company, “PLO” and their Marketing dysfunction as I have said, has been epic. In the name of efficiency they have spread their facets of Marketing, graphic design, web design, database development, customer acquisition campaigns and customer retention programs to the four corners of the outsourcing community. Each with their own unique style and way of creating the projects he gave them in the past.

As the story usually goes, those who were the original builders of Yasser’s Marketing Collateral, move on, some coming to their senses and leave PLO to their wares, others show their unwillingness to be browbeaten at every turn – Yasser’s management style is another topic for another day – finish the project and let him know they are no longer available to do work for PLO.

This culture with its feeding tributaries of overbearance, micromanaging, and assumed intellectual superiority has contributed to the helter skelter and the complete Marketing disarray they now find themselves in. They did not get the original content, the raw files, the raw data, and the descriptions of who made what, how they designed it and when they did it. The result is a few poor souls, being asked to oversee the Collaterals’ shells that are left over from months of neglect.

There were no processes put into place to be used as guidelines for creation, design and implementation. There wasn’t any cache that was created to house these many Marketing pieces in the beginning, and now no one in the organization know where anything is except that which was published in their Marketing Materials and on their web site. There wasn’t any gatekeeping, there wasn’t any oversight, there wasn’t anything done to keep a cohesive collection from the various sources PLO shot these projects to.

The state of which leaves the company in a precarious situation, which can be easily rectified if it weren’t for Yasser’s pomposity getting in the way of the solution. With no original content, all projects, each piece of the Marketing Collateral must now be recreated increasing the turnaround times to 3-4 times as long as they need to be. They are unable to properly govern the many touch points that are now out there representing their services because of the various versions that are out available to the public. They cannot effectively steer their Marketing in the directions they would like because the right hand doesn’t know where the left hand placed things, or how the left managed to design them. This is crucial when it comes to customer acquisition, and could spell the end of a company who cannot get a handle on it. Let me illustrate.

Because PLO had two or more developers for their databases (the information they are asking people to fill out on their site for their different service offerings) they haven’t been able to get the two or three points of info entry to collate together into one comprehensive whole. This major defect, although they are gathering the info on those signing up for introductory or free service offers, is inhibiting the data in making its way into the hands of PLO’s sales force for further business development. Hundreds and hundreds of potential leads worth thousands and thousands of dollars is being fed to a dead end bucket to never see the light of day because Yasser and PLO are unable to a) get the original programmer to work for them and b) have another programmer to augment the original code in a timely and a cost-effective manner.

Yes the code is still there, but it is like asking Michelangelo to finish a painting or sculpture that da Vinci started. Or to have a contemporary of Mozart, or Beethoven to finish an orchestral rendering that wasn’t completed. It’s doable, perhaps, but takes a lot of time and effort to do when you are coming in after the fact of the original creation.

The moral of this story? Besides that of changing a completely defunct way of managing talent by Yasser (the other story for another time) it is the way a company must set their Marketing Collateral to endure the test of time. Yes, most is created on the fly, but there needs to be a gate keeping process put into place so that each piece follows the established brand of the company; a clearinghouse so that there is consistency in message and image; a intra-company “playground” to test before going live with a project; and a storage facility to house the raw and finished materials once they are put out into the public consciousness.

Succeed on doing this and you will ensure the consistency of your company’s branding, and Marketing efforts, which leads to consistent growth and Sales profits. Fail in this and it takes you to Crazytown with a one-way ticket and a chance to have some cake. At least PLO and Yasser will be there to keep you company… you know what they say about misery.

Hark The Heralding

Thank you again for the welcome we have gotten, we are working on getting back all the dishes to you as soon as we can… some of you didn’t put your names on the plates, so it may take a lil bit longer to get them back to you.

While you’re waiting, here are a few more articles that you can use for your businesses.

Millennial Steps – Continuing with the Business Paradise entry, here you will find what the Components of a Super Brand are.

Starting Point – This is Hour Two at the Conference Table getting to the bottom of what you are going to need to get the largest target market in history to do business with you.

Now we have had a great Christmas Season we will get back to getting more out of the brain of AverageJoe and the successful strategies that make up modern Marketing.