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.

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.