McGraw-Hill Research conducted a study of U.S. recessions from 1980-1985. Out of the 600 business-to-business companies analyzed, the ones who continued to advertise during the 1981-1982 recession hit a 256-percent growth by 1985 over their competitors that eliminated or decreased spending.
In a recession, the first dollars that a company usually cuts come from the advertising budget. Advertising in a recession is actually a smart business move to grow your business now and for the future.
The chiropractor has fewer patients so he doesn’t invest as much in training or staff and so other patients choose to leave which means that there are even fewer patients.
The television station has fewer advertisers, so they can’t invest as much in running stories, so people stop watching it, which means advertisers have less reason to advertise which leaves less money for stories.
The bait shop sees a decline in business, so they have less money to spend on upkeep and inventory, so they keep the bait a bit longer than they should, so of course, business declines and then they have even less money. Eventually, you have an empty, smelly bait shop that’s out of business.
Many businesses hunker down and wait for things to get better, but they don’t. This isn’t a warning sign, it’s a dead end street. You can’t shrink yourself to greatness.
Right now, you still have some cash, some customers, some momentum. Instead of wasting it in a long, slow, death spiral, do something else. Advertise. Move. Find a New Product or Service. Just Do Something. Find a way to keep the customers that still trust you.
Most people don’t get married after the first date. It takes time to build a trustworthy relationship.
Traditional marketing and advertising still works. However, companies who are aware they need to strengthen their brands through social media relationships with consumers are more likely to prosper no matter what we hear on the news about the economy.
So, exactly what is social media? If you don’t know what social media is, consider this your first date.
Facebook is the current network of choice for most people with over 250 million active users. Facebook has tools in place that lets you hone in on target demographics of the people you want to reach. Get involved by setting up a personal page then a page or group for your company. Do you have a Facebook page?
Twitter is good for is keeping people informed and establishing fun and interesting relationships between current or potential clients and your brand by creating links to your website or other social media sites. Don’t plug your products and services with every tweet. Keep it fun and informative. Are you tweeting yet?
Not having a vision means that there’s plenty of room for whining, for infighting and for dissolution.
A solid vision keeps everyone on track; chaos takes over wherever the vision lapses. Having a vision not only points everyone in the same direction, it also creates motion.
While motion in any direction is often better than no motion at all, motion with vision creates synergy. Synergy inspires a team to work together to produce an overall better result than working individually.
Marketing has traditionally focused on the Four Ps – Pricing, Product, Promotion, and Place.
But in today’s demanding environment, marketers need to be focused on an additional set of letters – three Os and an I: Online, Offline, Outbound, and Inbound.
These letters represent new channels for marketing and new challenges for coordination, management, and measurement.
If you’re not online and generating inbound traffic, you might find your business offline and outbound for failure.
Are you ready for the three Os and the I? Ready or not, they’re here.
If you are finally ready to get serious about social media, here are four key steps to help you develop an effective strategy:
Step 1: Assess your findability. Where do your customers go online when they’re looking for your product category? Go there and see if you can find you.
Step 2: Establish credibility. It is of the utmost importance to establish trust and credibility in social media. If you talk about how your company or brand is the best, you’ll fail at both. Just like a real conversation, you should provide value and expertise, be transparent and identify yourself as a representative of the brand. Your goal should be to participate in the conversation and provide a credible viewpoint.
Step 3: Enhance reality. This is your opportunity to be an expert where you are an expert… not in a boastful way… in a knowledgeable way that can truly help others. Being an expert, without coming across as an expert, will go a long way to enhancing the reality of your brand image in social media.
Step 4: Measure Impeccability. Monitor your online reputation. Gauge your online reputation by utilizing website analytics tools to measure visitors’ time on your site, bounce rate and referring traffic data. Be sure to establish a baseline at the beginning of each social media campaign so you can accurately measure results.
_______________________________________
There’s a lot more to social media than merely creating a Facebook page. Social media offers tremendous opportunity. So, are you dating social media or are you ready to get married? Those who get serious with social media will derive serious value from it. It’s that simple.
Perception is reality…Â a direct mail piece is your target customers’ perception of your business.
Your mail piece is competing for the attention of EVERYTHING ELSE that arrives in the mailbox with it.
You need a quality direct mail piece — a mail piece that stands out in this marketing medium. Instead of “how cheap can I send this?” instead ask yourself, “How much do I need to spend to get my mail piece to the top of the stack?”
With the decrease in marketers sending out direct mail, right now is the perfect time to land in mail boxes with your mail piece.
Don’t think that just because you mailed something that it’s necessarily going to be read.
You must ‘make people WANT to read your mail piece.’
So, your most powerful weapon here is a compelling powerful headline. In fact, your headline is one of the most widely read parts of your mailing. It’s the part that keeps your reader reading — or not.
Make the headline about your reader. Your reader wants to know what’s in the offer for them… they don’t care about you until they know that you care about them.
Earlier this year the American Psychological Association reported that 80% of Americans feel stressed by the economy, 60% feel angry about it and 52% are having trouble sleeping.
So, what are you going to do about it?
If you sell bedding, stress balls, meditation, therapy, spa services, video games, financial management, career coaching, fitness training, nutritional supplements, or want to recruit more church members or collect more food donations, this study provides a hook.
The numbers grab attention, and the research findings lend your message timeliness and relevance.
Numbers persuade! And they do not have to be figures your organization gathered. Your ad or news release can focus on the implications of a recent survey, relating it to the problem your product or service solves.
Hopefully, you’ve become a smart business owner and realize the power AND importance of working “on” your business instead of “in” your business. These two go hand in hand — if you can balance them.
Do you really understand the importance of MARKETING your business?
So many business owners are just too busy to focus on “marketing.” Many business owners spend too much time managing or baby sitting staff (and customers) and too little time working “on” marketing their business.
When marketing becomes a chore and gets done as a last resort, it shows in the final marketing pieces.
See the follow-up blog on how to turn your “in” to your “on” in marketing your business.
