Practical advice on how to market in difficult times.
Too often when budgets have to be tightened, marketing gets cut. But this reaction can deeply injure an already struggling business and it’s a wound it may never recover from.
There is another way. Keep marketing in a way that doesn’t hurt your business but can save it money.
So, carry on reading to learn how to make the necessary marketing cost savings while carrying on marketing – meaning your business stays healthy despite getting a bit leaner.
Tip 1. Focus
Focus on who you are selling to. Ideally, keep it to just one tight, well-defined customer segment.
This seems counterintuitive – surely you need to get money in from ANYONE – but it works. When you focus on one segment and really go for it, you get ‘known as an expert’ in that area. You become the ‘go-to’ company. You’re the people they think of when they need that problem solved / that needs to be met.
Here at The Marketing Spaces, we talk about creating a Known Expert Strategy. This approach drives more paying clients to your business than the ‘try and grab anybody’ approach.
Even better, when you focus on who you are selling to, your marketing budget instantly decreases.
Why? Because you are only reaching out to one group of people, not different groups. The more groups of people (‘Segments’) you are marketing to, the more money it will cost. Save that money. Focus.
Tip 2. Play the long game
Good marketing should be about making sure you have a steady, consistent stream of people who could potentially buy from you. If you turn that tap off today, you are killing off tomorrow’s sales.
I like to work this through to see when the effect of stopping or drastically reducing marketing will have an effect.
Make a Marketing Plan. Roughly figure out how long it takes you to ‘win’ one new client. What is the time from them first becoming aware you exist to handing you some money (adopting)? One week? One month? Six months? A year?
That time period is how long it will be before you fully notice the effects of cutting your marketing. Too often, businesses ‘turn marketing off’ and don’t notice a difference at first. But as they get closer to that ‘time’ they can see that there are fewer possible clients coming through. Then they rapidly turn the tap back on but it can be too late.
Here’s an example.
If it takes six months for someone to move from first becoming aware of you to then buying from you, that is your time period.
If you ‘turn off’ your marketing now, in four months you will really notice a lack of marketing leads coming through. In six months’ time, your sales will probably be really down.
If at the four-month mark, you take action and ‘go for it’ with marketing and sales, you are trying to get people to speed up their Buyers’ Journey time. You are trying to get them to go from ‘aware to purchase’ in two months rather than six. That’s a huge risk and unlikely to fully succeed.
So, if you hit STOP on your marketing now, you are giving your business a wound it may not be able to recover from.
To play the long game, you need to keep your marketing going in one format or another, even when times are tough.
Tip 3. The Marketing to keep going – Loyalty
When times are tough, focus your marketing on those who have already bought from you and are happy with what they received.
If you look at the Buyers’ Journey, these people have already been through your marketing and sales process. You have already spent a lot of time and money on getting them to purchase from you.
Instead of spending more time and money on new clients, spend some of it on these ‘Loyal’ ones.
Why?
You need to engage in ‘Loyalty’ marketing activities, trying to get as a result one of the three Rs:
- Repeat business – they buy more from you
- Recommendations – they recommend you to other people
- Referrals – they give you details of people they think might buy from you.
So, take some time and money to engage with those ‘loyal’ customers and remind them you exist – and are still here to help.
Tip 4. The marketing to keep going – Awareness
Make sure people still know you are in business, doing your thing.
At times of uncertainty, as others must, or choose to, exit the market, it can provide a hefty dose of reassurance that you are still present.
You need your marketplace and everyone in it – referrers, champions, past clients, new leads – to know you still exist so they keep you top of mind. You want it to be you that they remember and turn to. So, make sure you are still visible and present.
Furthermore, if you stop, or radically cut, your marketing, it’s harder to relaunch yourself and remind people of who you are. And by ‘harder’ I mean it costs money and effort. It’s normally more cost-effective to maintain a consistent presence than stop it and have to start again.
Tip 5. Ditch the vanity and ‘oughts’ and shiny marketing
Let’s face it, all of us can let our marketing bloat. We add on another social channel to the ones we already use; let the spending on ads creep up; get hung up on how many views and likes we are getting.
Ditch that. This is vanity stuff.
It comes back to Tip 1: Focus.
You should only be doing marketing if you know your key audience is definitely there. Everything else can be cut back – including all those shiny marketing things and the vanity ones that make us feel good but do little else.
Play with it. See how low you can go on budget and marketing activity while maintaining a strong presence in the marketplace. If you really focus on using well one or two key marketing tactics, are they enough?
I met a business owner whose marketing consists of commenting on LinkedIn Posts, Networking and a monthly newsletter. Her order book is full.
It’s full because that is where her ideal clients are. She spends her time on LinkedIn engaging with them, which reminds prospective, current, and previous clients that she exists.
She networks in groups where her prospective, current and previous clients are. Her referral rates are high. Her recommendation rates are high. Her referral rates are high. Her repeat business rates are high.
The newsletter ‘mops up’ those she hasn’t networked with that month or who aren’t active on LinkedIn. It also reinforces her presence with her network and current and past clients.
What could you really hone your marketing down to?
Be ruthless and cut the spending and time on the stuff that might make you feel like your marketing is working, but isn’t really.
Over to you
Times can be tough for many reasons.
First, look after yourself – take time out, breathe, move, and put your health first.
Then, turn your attention to your marketing.
Consider how you can apply some of these tips so that your business doesn’t just limp along and survive, but remains healthy and ready for the upturn.
