Recession Marketing Strategy: Keys to Assure Your Survival

With the economy in such a mess,
could my company still grow?

So many companies are in trouble and the economy shows us the trend won’t be over soon.  At the same time, many companies are flourishing – even now.  There are a lot of things that a company can do to assure its survival.

In the next several issues of this newsletter, we will show you how to improve your marketing effectiveness and help you turn your lemons into lemonade.

In future issues we will discuss:

• how better follow-up can bring untapped sales,
• how to measure effectiveness and adjust marketing efforts,
• how creating websites will attract new customers efficiently, and
• how better targeting help make the bad times good and good times better.

Worrying won’t pay the bills

Would you believe that according to a recent survey, one in four American small business owners believe that their businesses may not be able to survive the recession?  In our lifetimes, we haven’t seen such a pessimistic view of running a small business and it is a fact according to an article published in the Phoenix Business Journal that cites a poll conducted by the National Federation of Independent Business.  In addition, one in six is certain that the recession and its downturn in the overall economy has hurt business prospects for the foreseeable future.

For the independent business owner, what exactly is the basis for the problem?  Is it the inability to secure ready credit?  Is it that so many larger companies are failing?  Is it because people are being laid off and are therefore not buying products and services?  No.  These are results.  The problem behind those results is poor sales. Almost half of those business owners identified falling and lost sales as the root of their problem.  Fewer than one in ten identify credit problems as the culprit.  Typically, those who cannot get more credit cannot get it because they would be unable to absorb more debt into their business.  Therefore, it is easy to see that pouring cash into a creditor is not really going to provide much help.

How can I activate myself and my company to meet this difficult challenge?

Right now, the best thing a business owner can do is stop staring at the graphs and pie charts, quit pouring over the financial statements and look ahead to making the sales effort much more efficient.

Sales are six times more effective with existing customers than with new ones.  Statistically (according to Forrester Research), it will take six or seven new prospect contacts to turn one of them into a customer.  Depending on your business venture, cultivating that new customer out of six or seven prospects can be quite expensive and time-consuming.  On the other hand, by marketing and closing further sales with existing customers, you can increase your sales effectiveness by 600% compared to the alternative of finding one more new customer to take that sale.

A modern, innovative solution to a common, traditional problem

Email marketing is an excellent way to reach your existing customer base and can serve as a central focus in cultivating new sales with existing customers.  Keeping your customers informed and you in their memory is the best way to keep good customers and boost your own sales.

One effective and proven email marketing tool, automated marketing follow-up is a fantastic new way to accomplish that goal. Automated marketing follow-up uses email to keep customers informed and continue the follow-up efforts following a sales contact and it works.  This 21st century marketing tool is described in greater detail in a recent article, Tweaking Your Customer Base—Automatically, published on our website.

Possibly one of the most important things you can do to help assure surviving, and even thriving in a sour economy is keeping positive while looking forward to such new and creative solutions that strengthen your business.  It is difficult to be creative when under stress.  This is where getting some professional outside help may be just what you need and ThriveMarketing wants to be there to help.  Being on the front edge of using technology to generate greater sales through more efficient marketing is what we do.  Let us show you new ways that will allow you not only to survive, but to thrive.

About ThriveMarketing

We measure our success by your success. Through creative marketing strategies, we help our clients generate more leads, build more profits, shorten sales cycles and strengthen brands. Marketing doesn’t have to be expensive. It just has to be effective. Not to mention right for you. We work with all types of marketing budgets and have become experts at working with what you have – with one goal in mind: to produce results. For more information, please visit www.ThriveMarketing.net or call 1.866.521.0827.

ThriveMarketing is a proud recipient of multiple American Marketing Association Spectrum Awards and is ranked in the Top 25 Web Design Firms by The Phoenix Business Journal.

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