Marketing in an Uncertain Economy: Five Tips to Get Through the Storm

Marketing in an Uncertain Economy: Five Tips to Get Through the Storm

It’s the classic complaint…”our sales are down…we have to cut expenses!”  When you’re looking at all the line items on your budget, marketing is often the one that gets cut first.  After all, you can’t NOT pay the electric bill…but opting out of a few ads will probably save you a few dollars.

Trouble is, you need marketing to drum up more business…but if you can’t afford it…well, you can see the Catch-22.  So how do you get through the tough spots and still keep your business in the public eye?  Here are five strategies that can help.

1. Invest in planning.  Spend a few hours looking over your marketing initiatives and expenses for the past year, determining what worked and what didn’t.  Is your message appealing, fresh and relevant?  Are your ads memorable, or wallpaper? Call in help if you need it — a few hours of a trusted colleague or a local marketing expert’s time can give you valuable perspective.

2. Dig into your customer base.  The cheapest customer to get is the one who already knows and loves you!  Are you doing everything you can to provide additional opportunities for your happy customers or clients to give you more business?  If your customers can’t or don’t buy from you more than once, do you have a rich and rewarding referral program?

3. Understand your customers’ buying cycle.  Spend some time thinking aobut and understanding where your product fits into your customers’ buying cycle.  The more expensive a product you have, and the longer sales cycle you have, the less you can afford to skimp on marketing.  If you’re not constantly filling your pipeline, when a slow time hits, you won’t have your customers far along enough in their decision process to be able to close people who are ready to buy. 

4. Build your personal network.  If you can’t find room in your budget to advertise, get yourself in front of as many people as possible.  Become your own billboard so people don’t forget about you. One of our clients, Sean of JP Kitchen Studio is a master at this. He’s got his company name embroidered on a number of great-looking pieces of sportswear (suitable for any event, save black-tie)  and makes sure to talk to as many people as possible at every event.  Chamber meetings, networking events — even your kids’ soccer games can be places you can showcase your message.

5. Consider how technology can help you.  Unless most of your sales are impulse buys, most people check out a website FIRST, before deciding to do business with you.  Can your website cut down on lengthy phone calls, long sales cycles, or mailing expensive literature?  Giving attention to your website may be a great investment for your marketing dollar.  Consider emailed newsletters and special offers rather than mailed, if you have permission from your customers.

Contrary to what your accountant says, cutting marketing expenses is not necessarily going to improve your bottom line.  Smart, targeted strategies can help you do more, with less.