How to Succeed in Business During a Recession

During hard economic times your business depends on marketing more than ever. Don't just give up and wait for the recession to pass. Your business can thrive even during the recession, but you need to do MORE marketing than you do when the economy is booming.

I was recently consulting an artist specializing in drawing quite unique type of portraits -- portraits of houses. Like so many other business owners she was struggling with attracting enough clients willing to buy her art.

When I asked how she markets her talent and art pieces, she answered that she belongs to a leads club and to the Chamber of Commerce. She also had a yellow page listing but she admitted it was generating calls from people shopping by price, not for high quality art pieces.

No wonder her business suffered. It was not NEARLY enough marketing to make any business survive, let alone thrive!

Sadly, it is not an isolated case. Chances are that you too have no consistent marketing strategy. Are you using just one or two, sometimes three tactics, rather haphazardly? That kind of scattered approach produces low quality leads. Don't get surprised that the orders or inquiries are not from your ideal type of client.

The key to marketing is to focus on the most desired segment of your possible prospects and to expose them to your marketing message repeatedly. It takes on average seven times for your prospects to SEE your message before you are able to overcome their natural barriers of mistrust, apathy and lack of interest.

Here are my favorite Marketing Pillars -- to succeed in difficult times, set a goal to implement all of them in your marketing plan:

1. Direct mail -- regularly send to your target market letters, cards, coupon books, postcards, etc.
2. Print advertising -- targeted newspaper advertising is essential for most types of business and produces excellent results if done properly.
3. Directory listings -- although the yellow pages is not effective for every business (rarely for an artist), there are some specific directories in which you should be listed.
4. Telemarketing -- make it a part of your marketing mix as well. Quite often the ONLY way to reach the best type of prospects is by phone!
5. Referral System -- structured referral program and personal endorsements can bring you new business predictably and consistently. But the process needs to be orchestrated, not left to a chance.
6. Customer education -- give before taking. Offer special reports, booklets, brochures and educational seminars. This is an extremely powerful way to generate leads and to establish yourself as the expert in your field.
7. Public Relations -- frequently send press releases to the publications your prospects read. Having your name in print is a powerful (and low cost) method of keeping your name in front of your target market.
8. Internet marketing -- keep in mind that just having a web site is not nearly enough. You need a web site that consistently generates leads. And you need to combine it with effective e-mail marketing.