MARKETING FOR A RECESSION

The key to managing your marketing strategy in these difficult times is to be more proactive and if possible reduce the costs at the same time. Is this possible? The answer is a resounding yes, marketing guru John Stanley says.

When times were good, marketing was relatively easy. You could, for example, put an advert in the local newspaper and wait for the customers to flock in. That strategy today may not work. In fact some marketing gurus are actually talking about the demise of the newspaper during this recession - they may not be around in the traditional format for much longer.

Marketing today needs to be low investment and high return and it needs to be so different that the customer will actually acknowledge what you are doing needs their support. You need to create a tipster marketing campaign that will get people talking.

What is the answer? Provide what you do for free. I realise that many readers of this article will probably not read past this sentence as they feel that providing their service for free will kill of their business.

IMAGNE IF YOU WERE A HAIRDRESSER

A hairdresser in the UK, seeing his business decline, realised traditional marketing was not getting customers back in his door. He needed to do something dramatic to get his business back on track. He decided to talk to his local pub owner and ask if he could provide free haircuts for the bar patrons for one hour. The answer was yes and the result was the hairdresser had a busy hour providing the free hair cut service.

He made it clear that the offer was only available for a one hour period. At the end of the session he handed out business cards with details of his business and invited the patrons to visit his premises for a haircut once the pub was closed. He then enjoyed a drink with the patrons, most of whom paid for his drink as a thank you.

The result of his marketing campaign was huge success and he is now enjoying trade in the recession while his competitors who are relying on the old true and tested marketing methods are still seeing their businesses decline.

WHAT ARE THE LESSONS?

If you want to get the message across when the customer does not want to listen you need to dare to be different. You need to invest time rather than money in finding out where else your customers go and how you can create a theatrical experience using your services and products in that new environment. That environment could be the local pub, coffee shop, shopping mall, local service club or wherever.

Once you have selected your venue you need to offer the customer something for free. When the wallet and purse is being kept shut, you need to offer something radically different to encourage them to open it again. Free is an emotional word that will attract attention in today’s economic climate. Consumers want to know what they can get for free, so you need to create a curiosity that matches the economic time.

Then you need to follow through. Our hairdresser put a time limit on the offer and then had loads of business cards ready to hand out to the rest of the audience.

He also realised it was not the haircut, that created the buzz, but how he did it. He realised that he was in the theatre business and that it was his own persona that he was selling, not the haircut. His personality was a key to the success of the marketing campaign. He built on a number of key marketing strategies. He was relying on tipster marketing by people talking about him after he had left the scene. He was also making the local customers aware that he was a local business person that needed help and that he was into neighbour to neighbour marketing, which always strengthens in tough economic times. In addition, people will support innovators over complainers in difficult trading periods.

The challenge is what can you do to get your business into a situation where it will be noticed and customers will start taking about you.