Feel The Financial Fear and Face Marketing Facts Anyway!
There’s an advertising crisis at the moment, as publications on the news-stands feel the pinch of the recession on their revenue budgets. Sales and readership are reducing, as more people go on line to get their answers. It’s a toss up for many between buying the daily or having that coffee and cake in the morning before work. In the wider business world, companies are reducing their marketing budget previously allocated to classifieds and advertorials.
We have been here before… About a decade ago, recession bit and companies experienced a drop in their sales, as belts were collectively tightened. Marketing, because poorly understood by many small and medium enterprises, is the often the first area to pull back on. Ten years ago and no doubt in every recession which has gone before, companies, unsure of the return on their investment, reigned in their budget for marketing and advertising. It was a vicious circle, as sales dropped as those same companies dropped off the radar of the consumer, distracted by the messages of their competitors heard all the more loudly in the reduced clamour.
When the economy is suffering, there’s a downward spiral that business owners feel powerless to prevent. Customers buy less, so there’s less revenue monies available for marketing, which means in turn that there’s less investment in persuading customers to buy in the first place, and eventually the ripples continue to spread into darker pools of self-fulfilling prophesies.
Unless of course your marketing has been proven to work in your business. You are confident that your marketing results are specific and measurable and you know the direct correlation between your advertising budget and your return on investment. These businesses continuing to be out there during recessionary cycles know that advertising can be both the first point of contact for new business and it is also the connection to their existing customers and more importantly, their copy-writing has delivered ‘message-to-market’.
Ironically, the reality of marketing is counter-intuitive. Whilst recession sends some businesses running for cover, in fact, innoculation by reverse psychology is needed in your marketing and it is based on this simple tenet. We create the very conditions we seek to avoid through fear. Beware of self-fulfilling prophesies. Ask any therapist and they will verify this simple cognitive principle. Transfer these same lessons which apply to individuals to organisations or businesses… In fact the outcomes might be greater via economies of scale!
Here’s another interesting psychological lesson for those gripping the advertising purse strings with white knuckles and holding on for dear life on the present roller-coater ride. Behave ‘as if’, until you get the results you desire and become the ‘thing’ / ‘person’ you wanted to be in the first place! Call it faith, belief, positive thinking… FACT: You will attract those people (or customers) who seek those qualities and the cycle of ‘poverty of thinking’ is broken, as is the financial spiral downwards for your business.
But here’s the rub. In hard times, companies cut back on advertising, when they are not fully convinced of a direct correlation to their return on investment, i.e. they fear that their hard earned returns are potentially wasted on empty marketing, so they withdraw from that business operation which they believe hurts them and in so doing shoot themselves in the foot at a time when it can really count!
So how do you get over this psychological and financial pain barrier? In short, to borrow a phrase from one of my mindset heroines, Susan Jeffers: “Feel the financial fear and face marketing facts anyway“. Look at those advertisers in your industry who are still in the marketing game in spite of recession. What are they doing? Chances are they are simply telling customers why they still need to consider buying their product, how purchasing their products or services benefits the buyer and what their particular company offers now / next week only / this coming holiday season. In short, the smart marketer will be promoting SPECIFIC FEATURES and BENEFITS they know their customers respond to, no matter what the economic climate.
Some sceptical business owners might be reading this thinking, “but that kind of advertising space COSTS!” Well, first off, remember these publications wanting your advertising custom are suffering too right now, through desperation brought on by diminishing advertising revenues. Times are hard for them too, so your business is now in a stronger negotiating position with sellers of advertising space than in otherwise normal market conditions. Tell the advertising agent you “want a ‘suck it and see’ trial run”. Then if your marketing works, they will benefit from a continued commitment from you thereafter – and you know “much of (your) custom is generated online anyway!”
Second – and this is crucial – remember if your product is so great, that the market gobbled it up before the recession hit, those hungry consumers are still out there; customers just need stronger reasons perhaps to buy now… So give them what they want… REASONS… FACTS
As a teen, I was a HUGE music-head. If I was a fan of any particular band, I wanted to know everything about them and wanted to hear EVERYTHING they produced and buy whenever I could afford it. If necessary, I saved up to indulge my passion! OK there was a blip when Roger Waters dampened my passion momentarily with ‘The Final Cut’, because he had run out of interesting ideas and the music followed suit…Still, I moved onto other musicians and bought their records instead! This is my point – Pink Floyd had nothing more to say that I wanted to hear… I haven’t bought an album by them since…The power of lyrics?
My point is this. Marketing messages should be about sharing value and information people want to know about. A loyal customer wants to indulge their passions; fresh prospects may want to find solutions to their problems that you have. Any quarter page advertising in a well-selected journal is going to get the eyeballs of your fans – old and new! Your fans are your repeat buyers who pay for your advertising! Your loyal customers are who you produce your products for, right? So take a leap of faith, invest in them and let them pay you right back!
You need to keep that love affair alive and trust in your customer’s commitment to buying from you. If you do not believe your customers have a good enough reason to act on your advertisements, you just need to re-focus your own passion and get over that fear holding you back from giving your ‘message to market’. Your repeat customers AND those you have not reached out to yet are definitely worth your marketing investment right now whilst the market is quiet.
As your competitors drop off, your opportunities to grab attention, generate fresh interest and even incite new curiosity could significantly increase your market share! When your message is clear and your target audience responds, your apparently expensive investment can more than pay for itself.
So, think afresh about what excites you about your own products or services. Make a list of features and benefits you can offer consumers, then put yourself in the shoes of your customer. Do they still want to know about what you can offer? OF COURSE they do! So: What do they want to know? Be specific! “Does it save me money?” “How much can I save by buying now?” “ Is there a unique production or delivery process involved?” “What inspired the company to create your (unique) product?” “What is the story behind the story?” But just stick to the facts and drop the frippery and fluff! Be proud of your business and share what you have to say with people who will still seek you out and plan their next purchase.
In short, information marketing can be your anti-dote to market depression if you take a more clean and clinical approach to your message delivery.
(My thanks to Perry Marshall for his marketing messages about the importance of Information Marketing which inspired this blog today – ‘Sense and Nonsense in Business To Business Marketing‘)
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