Despite executive branch reassurances to the contrary, it sure feels like a recession. Our clients are worried about slowing sales and want to conserve cash. Marketing and broadcast production is one of the first places they look to cut.
But tough economic times also present opportunity. If your business is normally being outspent by larger competitors who have recently cut back, this could be an opportunity to finally be heard without increasing your budget. You don’t have to yell any louder when everyone else has started whispering. Our advice to our clients, including a group of car dealers and a fast food chain, has been to move forward and gain market share.
We have seen times like these before and learned a few things. Here are suggestions for the coming months:
• Focus on your core strengths. What are you known for more than anything else? Do it and do it well. Customer experience can boost the perceived value of what you do or sell, without having to cut price.
• Focus on value, not price. Point out your benefits, not how cheap you are. You can almost never own the low price game, but you can own the best value game. What are you offering customers that your competitors are not? That should be your lead message.
• Simply cutting prices is not going to get you where you want to be. Sure, you have to stay with the market, and if the market dips, you have to follow to some extent. But price slashing is a slippery slope. It can work for driving short-term traffic and attracting new customers, but do it too often or for too long and it can permanently change your business image to one of a discount brand or off-price company. Once people expect below-market prices from you, it is difficult to return to “normal” pricing. Recessions don’t last but your brand has to.
• Make the consumer feel in control. They will be more attracted to a brand that is reassuring and helps them feel in charge of even a small part of their lives.
• Your marketing messages should not be aspirational or promise a carefree existence. These are not optimistic times–you don’t want to look like you are out of touch with the world. However, try to make people laugh. It’s disarming and refreshing amidst the gloom of the daily news. Make people feel you understand the world they are living in right now. Give them a moment of relief and they will want to associate with you.
• Think before cutting your marketing budget. With less competitive noise out there, you can be heard more loudly and clearly than ever before with the same budget.
• If you decide to market less, your sales will be less. Then your fears will have been realized by your own hand, a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Marketing actually gets more important as consumers think harder before they spend money. For small clients who are up against bigger competitors with bigger marketing budgets, this is a time when you can truly grow your business and your market share. By all means, look before you leap. But don’t be afraid to leap. You might just land out in front.
Bruce Gifford is creative director at SmithGifford in Falls Church, Va.
