Tough Times call for Smart Marketing

How your business reacts to the “great recession” makes all the difference between failing and thriving. Creative entrepreneurs do not simply curl up, hunker down and wait until an economic downturn passes. They use the slowdown to market smarter, regarding tight circumstances as an opportunity to out-think competitors and turn adversity into advantage. In fact, genius marketer Sam Walton — founder of Wal-Mart — believed that when times are good, you should market your products and services, and when times are bad, you must market them.
Historically, companies maintaining or increasing marketing efforts through troubled times increase sales and market share during and after the slowdown. What’s more, businesses that regard marketing costs as investments rather than expenses enjoy higher long-term dividends.
Although everyone seems focused on cost when business slows, value should be your real concern. Because tough times mean restricted budgets, it is important to explore creative ways to make marketing more cost-effective. Direct mail continues to be the workhorse that drives many marketing programs, including today’s multi-channel campaigns.

Use of direct mail in today’s marketplace will be more effective if you incorporate some of the following ideas:
Create targeted campaigns. Focus on your audience. Aim only at prospects with the highest potential. It is more effective to send frequent, smaller mailings to qualified prospects than it is to send one large mailing to unqualified customers. By capturing data more agressively, you can pinpoint recipients based on any of the elements in your database. Some obvious and valuable data to have on hand include: “customer since,” “last purchase date,” “last item purchased,” “responded to XXXX promotion,” and any other demographic information that can enhance your list-building efforts.
Sharpen your copy. Distill your message into essential copy points that best convey your product/service and offer. Remember to stress benefits, not features. A cold beer is refreshing (benefit). It comes in handy 12 ounce cans (feature).
Evaluate design. Take a hard look at whether or not you really need to send a package or an envelope with an insert. Use of envelopes is not always necessary. Investigate the possibility of doing a self-mailer or even a card. Self-mailers and cards get into readers’ hands immediately. With self-mailers, you do not need to worry about how to get them to open an envelope.
Assess printing. Do you really need a full-color piece? Less colors when used creatively, can produce an upscale look. Sometimes, you can even get away with printing an attractive piece that does the job in one color. Just make sure that the text, look and the offer work well together.
Save on lettershop services. By simplifying your mail piece, you can reduce production time and labor costs in the mailhouse. Consult before you commit.
Investigate the possibility of postage savings. Again, consulting with your mailer can produce significant savings. Maximizing postal discounts could be very beneficial to your budget.

Remember, companies that remain aggressive during a downturn seize market share from their more timid competitors. And when competitors cut back, marketing efforts by companies that ride the downturn appear even more outstanding. Additionally, more active enterprises project corporate confidence, strength and stability. If a company’s market presence diminishes, so goes the number of its customers, and everyone knows that the cost of regaining lost ground is much higher than the amount saved by slashing the marketing budget.
Smart business people regard hard times as a challenge and an opportunity to increase customer loyalty, solidify market share and even attract new customers. You can meet the challenge by using direct mail — a time-tested marketing approach that could improve your bottom line while your competitors continue to do little but curl up, hunker down and worry about what is coming down the pike.