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!

Marketing Design & Psychology

I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately. The things that come to the Marketing professional as naturally as breathing; alignment of graphics, copy formatting, the shade you place on the header of a keyword rich paragraph – the mechanics of the Marketing process may not come as easily to others as it does us lucky ones.

Yes, it may sound conceited, but it hardly takes a second thought for those of us who have finely tuned their skills to put together a vehicle of communication with words, or pictures, or a combination of both that is pleasing to the eye, and easy with which to connect.

Take the selection of colors… yeah the selection of colors! As a Designer, no matter what the Marketing vehicle, a billboard, a direct mailer, an online ad, or a whole web site, there is a whole ‘nother level to getting the message to your intended audience. If you were targeting motorcycle enthusiasts, you wouldn’t be using pastels, or fluorescent colors. Use colors that those you target would connect with… even better, use the colors that would evoke the desired feelings, the deeper emotional connection, the psychological tie they have of the color. In the instance of a motorcycle enthusiast, if you use the combination of black and orange in your design, you will be able to connect psychologically with the hard work that Harley Davidson has done over the years with their branding of the colors.

Each one of us has psychological connections to colors. For us who grew up in the ‘70’s the combinations of green, orange and brown plaid have special memories, as well as the rainbow colors on suspenders. Depending on each target audience (age group, hobbies and interests, etc.) each has their set they are tied to, each with their own set of “color codes”.

To have success in Marketing, it is essential to address of psychology of design, the perspectives of purpose, and branding. Colors and color schemes are a big part of this equation. When you as a designer can closely tie the target audience’s experience with your company together with the deep near subconscious positive emotions of that targeted individual, then is when you have created a loyal client.

Sounds like brainwashing doesn’t it? Over the years since the ability to broadcast over large areas was in effect, those who are in business large and small have attempted to brainwash…er, I mean, create a loyal customer to their services, products and brand.

In reality, it really is not brainwashing. Every one of us wants to feel pleasure, comfort, and safety in life. If a product or service that your company provides brings true pleasure, comfort or safety, this in real time, in perpetuity is fact, not fallacy that would constitute the need for brainwashing.

It is the exact opposite rather; when your design brings into view the essence that is most appealing about your brand which would satisfy the needs of your clientele; by getting them to feel certain emotions, which creates avenues for thoughts of how your company can satisfy those particular needs and drives them to act upon those thoughts with your company, products and services.

That’s what is called “Marketing’s Utopia” – when you have a product that matches up to all the hype and circumstance that it was created to satisfy – and the underlying effect that you can portray can be encased in the right colors used in the messaging, packaging, and presence online.

This psychological factor plays large in the proper Marketing to the multi-leveled Millennials. As mentioned, these individuals have been surround and bombarded by advertising all their waking hours since becoming aware of their environments. Their brains have not only been wired to filter out extemporaneous “white noise” but also have been trained to recognize the nuances of a smartly put-together Marketing campaign.

Colors are a large factor in this. In the American environs red signifies an alert, a high response, action… perhaps even agitation. You’ll find that blue and all the shades of it are most common in logos, packaging, backgrounds, and of graphics in general because it elicits confidence, calm, and trust. It is a preferred color of corporate America.

Even the lesser-used colors, the greens, and purples, the yellows and even the shades of black all carry with them connotations to those you target. When you understand whom your target market comprises of, and the segments within those targets, you will be able to match up the correct color schemes to them.

Don’t quite believe how important colors are? All of this just the rantings of an overly worked design simpleton? Try this test for me… Google – Corporate America, or even something more generic… business, for example… and take a look at the colors that are used. Look at the first 10, then google Women’s Issues or even something more generic than that… womanhood is good… and take a look at the colors being used on those types of sites. Even as elementary a demographic as Male and Female, colors play an integral part in getting the message, as I call it, as psychologically easy to be received as possible.

Of course, there are many other factors to consider, and to include when you are putting a Marketing piece together. To know which ones, in which order, and which not to include is what we Marketing Professionals like me get paid the big bucks to do. Suffice it to say here that we who truly care about what we represent, and the messages we place into the public general, are finely honed message machines looking to speak to the essence of the real you.

So the next time you’re asked which color are you, perhaps your answer will have a deeper, more meaningful significance for you than it had before.

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.

Moving In to Our New Digs

Thank you to all who have come over with offerings of cake and casseroles welcoming us to the neighborhood! The Move-In is coming along nicely I just wanted to show you a few of the rooms that we have finished out recently.

Business Resources – Chock full of helpful links on the actual doing business – check out the business forms link we have hanging in there!

Marketing 101 – Have the basics in here, the text book questions and answers, and the ‘from scratch’ articles for those starting out at the beginning.

Starting Point - This is addressing what you are going to need to get to the largest target market in history… my pet project for this blog!

The other sections are a little bare at the moment but we are working diligently to fill them with what is in the brain of AverageJoe and the successful strategies that makes up modern Marketing.