3 Steps to Marketing in a Recession — First, Focus
Marketing budgets are squeezed, staffs are shrinking, sales and fundraising are down, and the demand is to communicate more with less. These turbulent waters are roiling many marketers and their clients between two extremes – flailing at a dizzying pace or stuck in paralysis.
The first essential survival strategy is to step back, review marketing plans — and focus — on your own business as a communicator and on the timely marketing needs of your clients.
- Elevator speech: Is your 45-second sales pitch honed to a laser-like message about what makes you and your clients distinctive?
- Basics: Are you focusing on what’s worked and where key priorities lie for the next 3-6 months?
- Audit: Have you taken a hard look lately at your communications tactics and whether some should be stopped or temporarily halted for higher-yield activities and slimmer budgets in the short term?
- Creativity: Are you trying something new? Upgrading your professional toolkit by becoming savvy with social media and helping your clients do the same will better position you and them for the recovery. As Gerard Braud wrote in Communication World this month, when the economic downturn is over, things won’t be the same, and smart marketers will have prepared themselves to be ready.
Clearly there is no shortage of ideas about surviving these times, so here is more “best of breed” thinking in a whitepaper from Thunder Factory.
