Credit Crunch Killing Customers?

Credit crunches come and go and have different names like Black Monday, Black Wednesday, South Sea Bubble, Dot Com Bubble, The Great Depression and many others.

And yet businesses keep rolling on. The reality is that customers are still there. The further reality is that they still need or want the goods and services that companies have always provided. Overall the market’s consumers may be spending less but you can bet your last dollar someone somewhere is spending money like water on things your company provides.

The big idea here is to do more marketing during a recession because you can bet your competitors are doing less. Therefore, you get cheaper access and potentially more of your prospects too. After all if your two top competitors stop advertising and you continue who will your prospects know about? Again if you’re doing direct mail and your competitors stop and you continue who will be at the top of the mind for your prospects?

The answer of course, is YOU!

A study conducted in 2005 and highlighted in 2008 by PennState SMEAL College of Business (“Does Proactive Marketing During a Recession Pay Off“) studied over 150 marketing executives and identified 3 traits that would enable them to survive and prosper during a recession.

They were:

1. The business needs a marketing emphasis. Trying to just “do marketing” doesn’t work normally and is a disaster if you don’t know what you’re doing during a recession. You need to increase marketing to get more prospects to convert to customers.
2. You need an entrepreneurial culture. More marketing is needed, the investment is risky, with an entrepreneurial culture you’re more likely to take the risk.
3. You need money. Increasing marketing requires cash, no cash you can’t do anything.

The problem, of course is that the only way to improve your business in this way is to have the 3 traits listed. Suddenly deciding to invest in more marketing without considering marketing strategy, the investment you’d need and your expected return is suicide.

Of course bringing in a marketing  expert to help you decide your strategy and to work out the tactics will resolve the first issue. Maintaining an entrepreneurial approach is more difficult and an experienced coach would be able to guide you and your workforce. And to do both those things you need money!

Recession Proof Marketing

The other alternative is to work with your marketing expert to create marketing strategies that cost very little to implement. For example, an ongoing PR campaign, or a direct mail campaign, or an email campaign. You could improve the pull of your web site and I’ll go into more detail on that topic next time.