When you’re looking to cut costs in a downturn, your marketing budget may seem an easy target.
But it makes little sense to reduce your exposure to your target markets at a time when the competition is tougher than ever and sales are hard to come by.
If you don’t have a marketing plan, now is an excellent time to prepare one. Marketing yourself during tough times will give you an advantage when the green shoots of recovery arrive – and it doesn’t need to cost the earth. Here are a few other ideas.
You can keep your customers up to date with what you’re up to via a regular e-newsletter – cheaper and greener than a paper version.
If what you send people is useful and relevant, you’ll start seeing returns. Clients will welcome news on products and services while special offers will go down a treat.
Reputation Management: How to Manage Your Reputation Online
With more and more business blogs and social networking sites appearing across the Internet, businesses must take steps to ensure that their reputation is not affected by an unhappy customer or revenge seeking member or ex member of staff. Comments about you and your company may already be live on other sites and if you've ever Googled your name, only to find out that you are appearing alongside individuals with the same name that you really don’t wish to be associated with you know how important managing your business reputation online can be.
Each day, thousands of individuals are searching online for information about others simply by searching on Google or other leading search engines. With information being so readily available, managing your reputation is more important than ever.
If you don’t already have a website, it’s worth investing in one. It won’t cost the earth to create a site, although remember that for maximum effectiveness, it needs to be easy to navigate and contain clear, concise information that existing and potential clients will really find useful.
Once it’s up and running, your website will be a low-cost marketing and e-commerce tool. Include systems that will let you take orders and payments online, which many customers now expect as standard. Effective search engine optimisation will also help to move your site up the rankings.
To come through the downturn, you need to offer your customers something more than your competitors. So it makes sense to take a long, hard look at what your rivals are offering potential customers and what, if anything, they are doing better than you.
You may think you already know what your customers want but are you sure? Seeking feedback from your clients will tell you what they like about your products or services and the way you do business.
Combining information on your unique selling points with your research into your competitors will help you to add value to your products and services.
At a time when all your resources are precious, don’t waste time and money by doing things that don’t work for your business.
Learn what really gets results for you and you business and do more of that. If it stops working, carry out further research to find out new ways to market your business.
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