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Welcome to the The Marketing Source e-newsletter! Our goal is to provide you with real-world marketing tips.If you have any ideas for articles, please send them along.
Make a Resolution to Marketing
Typically when the New Year dawns we spend our time cajoling small business marketers to get busy keeping their resolutions to put their strategic marketing ducks in a row. But with the economy in disarray, marketing budgets slashed and businesses simply trying to survive the storm, what's our best advice? Exactly the same thing. Now more than ever you need to think strategically about your entire business, including your communications.
You may not have the budget for a new product launch and you may have to put some market research on hold. Maybe you need to cut back on advertising expenses or consolidate sales territories. But even in survival mode, what you can't afford to do is stop marketing - or waste valuable marketing dollars on initiatives that don't pay off.
Where do you start? Take a look at three critical areas.
Protect the customers you already have. Keep sending your newsletters, direct mail and other communications. Offer specials and rewards to keep those customers coming to you. If you don't have a solid system in place for identifying and communicating with your best customers, there's no better time to put one in place. Even if they are buying less or putting off purchases, don't give a competitor the chance to catch their attention or woo their business.
Focus on what you do that your customers can't do without. What keeps your customers coming back day after day, month after month? Sure, you may have to make some adjustments, especially if the products or services you provide are more discretionary. But don't throw out the core competencies you've built your business on. Instead, look for ways to offer smaller- ticket items, unbundled services, less-expensive purchase plans - creative ways to let your customers continue doing business with you. And don't forget that if great customer service is part of what keeps your customers loyal, this is the wrong time to drastically cut your staff or cut out important customer benefits!
Be strategic and creative to keep things rolling. Okay, say you have to reduce your marketing expenses by 10%. Don't just chop your ad budget or cut 10% across the board. Think! Pull out your marketing plan and identify the strategies that will help you keep your customers and shore up your core products and services. Now figure out how you can put those strategies to work - maybe more creatively. Keep your customer newsletter, but change some of the issues to e-newsletters. Do a condensed version of your annual report and limit the distribution. Cut out the image advertising, but keep the direct response campaigns that drive calls and web traffic.
Yep, these are some challenging times. But the marketers who survive and prosper will be those who kept their heads - and their strategies - about them. So get your 2009 plan in place and figure out which customers and strategies are critical. There's not a penny or a moment to spare.
Not sure which way to turn in this upside-down economy? We can
help.
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