Should You Ramp Up or Scale Down Your Marketing in a Shaky Economy?

Everyone is feeling a little edgy these days about the economy, and whether or not it’s going to affect business.  There’s an interesting article on BNET that has an interview with the author on a study on whether or not it pays off to up your marketing in a down economy.  Check it out here:  http://blogs.bnet.com/intercom/?p=1573

The author points to three characteristics of the kind of business that will be successful using this strategy.  Namely, you need a history of a strong marketing culture, the guts to do it, and be willing to spend some money. 

The study looked at big businesses with big budgets, but can smaller businesses apply the same principles?

On developing a culture of marketing, it absolutely applies to small business.  If you’ve been relying on word of mouth and referrals for all your business, and all of a sudden the economy takes a downturn, it can be an expensive and daunting task to build an effective marketing structure from scratch.  But if you’ve been keeping your written materials and website up to date, have a few ads pre-designed, a public relations strategy and a referral program, then you can respond quickly and effectively to build new leads for your business.  This is especially important if you have an expensive, complex product, or one with a long sales cycle.

Guts and cash, are both, of course, also always handy to have on hand.  Bottom line is, if your business is healthy enough, why not use the economic downturn to your advantage?  You know that many of your weaker competitors will be cutting their budgets to the bone…which may give you the opportunity to make your position in the market more solid.  Then when the customers are ready to spend, you’ll be the one they remember. 

Need help making your marketing more effective?  Contact us at christy@mktondemand.com, or get inspired at our website  www.mktondemand.com

Email Marketing: Good or Evil?

Email marketing. 

 

Let’s face it – email marketing has gotten a pretty bad rap.  The bad guys in the industry have made quite a mess for honest marketers to work with, and we’re all pretty leery about doing anything that smacks of spam (aka, unwanted email.)

 

The good news is that people DO want to hear great information from people they want to do business with.  And it is hands-down less expensive to use email versus direct mail, or most other forms of advertising.

 Email is still the cheapest, most efficient way to communicate with potential customers, be it once a week or once a year.  Would your customers appreciate hearing about specials, getting your opinion on economic events, your advice on designing a new home or more information on your area of expertise?  You bet they would! 

START NOW.  If you think you are going to want to do email newsletters in the next year or two, start building your opt-in list today.  If you don’t have a list yet, have your web guru place a “subscribe to our newsletter” link on your home page, sign up for a newsletter mailing service (we like Constant Contact) and start getting your list built today.  Advertise it in your print newsletters, and ask your current customers to subscribe.  Then, build yourself a newsletter or format for advertising specials, and email away.  Don’t go overboard, through — you don’t want to irritate or alienate your customers by clogging their inbox with too much mail.

 

We don’t think small and local businesses are taking enough advantage of the great potential that email marketing provides.  YOU can get a jump on your competition with this easy and manageable strategy!

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.

Practical Marketing Tips for Small Businesses

If you believe the media, running a business in a small or mid-sized town is just asking for trouble.

For years we’ve been told that that the small business is a dying breed.  No longer can you compete with the big mall, the big chain and the bloated advertising budgets of the major brands out there. 

From the other side, you’ll hear the old guard. These are the insurance salesmen, bank presidents and builders of a certain age who’ve built their communities over the years, have “always done it this way.”  They’re the ones at every community golf outing, and sponsoring the Lion’s breakfast. And see no reason to change.

But you believe you have a service your community needs.  Or you already have happy customers and clients who want to do more business with you.  Your budget is limited, so you want whatever you spend to have an impact — but you’re overwhelmed by the choices available.

We don’t agree that the small businessperson can’t compete.  And we also don’t believe you can still do things “the same old way” and expect the same results.  Today’s small businessperson needs to be more marketing savvy than ever.  We hope this blog will help.