How To Market Your Business In Uncertain Times – Especially If You Can’t Afford To Waste Your Time Or Money

When the future seems uncertain, the most natural thing in the world is to batten down the hatches. And that’s exactly what we’re seeing in the face of Coronavirus, and talk of recession.

Most of us in business have been through crises and recessions before, and we’ve seen that the patterns of old are playing out again like "all non-essential spending is now on ice".

And guess what – marketing often falls into that category. Hooray! (That's sarcasm by the way)

But what we also know from experience, is that those companies that get creative and look after their customers and team through these wild times, are most likely to rebound fastest when the storm has passed. And that wherever there is change - there is opportunity.

The question is – what do you do when you know that you can’t afford to stop marketing – but you also can’t afford to waste precious resources?

The answer – get smarter about what marketing you do, and how you do it.

So, in this article I’m going to give you some ideas on how to approach and prioritise your marketing when you need to be super smart about it.

My personal belief is that these principles are valid regardless of whether times are bullish or bearish. But for some reason (probably normal human behaviour), we pay more attention to them only when we're on life support.

I’ll leap into my “5 Steps For Smart Marketing” shortly, but before I do there’s something BIG that I really want you to have a think about – as it will be the single greatest thing that will shape how you navigate this mess, and come out the other side.

“Whether you think you can, or can’t – you’re right”.

Are you wondering what on earth that has to do with marketing? Quite simply, if we believe that everybody is in shut down, and nobody is buying or looking – we’re right. And if we believe that people still have problems that we can solve for them, and they're willing and able to pay for it – we’re right.

The first belief will lead us to stop marketing - and the result will be a self-fulfilling prophecy. The second belief will lead us to get creative and resourceful, to find whatever opportunity exists – and go after it.

It’s a bit like the old story of the two salesmen that go to Africa selling shoes – one returns and says that there’s no opportunity in Africa because no-one wears shoes. The other returns excitedly leaping up and down saying that the opportunity is massive, because no-one wears shoes.

The Golden Nugget - ultimately our mindset and our beliefs at this time will be the single greatest determinant of how we come out of this.

So, I’m going to be blunt – if you believe that there is nothing you can do, and that there is no opportunity – stop reading. Don’t waste your time. Or alternatively - you could shift your attitude!

You’re still here? Fantastic.

Before I introduce you to the 5 steps for smart marketing, I want to correct a common misconception.

It’s the belief that Marketing IS Advertising – and it explains why so many businesses might as well be flushing their marketing budget down the toilet, or piling it high and setting fire to it.

Advertising is just ONE component of marketing, and it’s one of the most expensive.

The 5 steps for smart marketing introduces you to many of the other components. It’s designed to help you prioritise where you spend your time and money, when you want to get as much bang for your buck as you possibly can. In good times AND bad.

So let’s crack into it.

Here are the 5 steps for smart marketing:

Step One: FOUNDATIONS. Build a strong but flexible marketing foundation.The main thing – think customer, customer, customer

Step Two: RETAIN. Retain existing customers. Thank them for their business. Stay in touch with existing customers. Deliver a wonderful customer experience

Step Three: MAGNIFY. Grow existing customers. Put strategies in place to encourage existing customers to buy more, more often. Eg a loyalty programme, upselling and cross selling. This is best and easiest done if you take the time to understand their needs and challenges.

Step Four: MULTIPLY. Leverage existing customers.Take every opportunity to utilise your existing customers to introduce new customers to your business. Eg Testimonials, reviews, referral system and “WOW” initiatives to generate word of mouth.

Step Five: WIN. Win new customers. Make sure you apply solid advertising principles to all your advertising initiatives. It’s amazing how many advertisements are out there that are in the wrong place, with the wrong message, that don’t incorporate the basics such as using engaging pictures/video, stand out headlines, talking about the customer and benefits (not just product features), with an awesome offer, and a clear call to action etc.

And here's a question for you.

Are you guilty of waiting until the phone stops ringing until you take marketing seriously, and then reacting by throwing money into ads?

It’s extremely common, and such a waste. It often means that lower cost activities which are low hanging fruit get missed or ignored. Basically it’s very common to leap to step 5, without even having step one in place.

And I can tell you now – it rarely ends well.

In this article I’m going to delve just a little into explaining Step One (Foundations), because it’s the most critical of all. And it’s where most businesses are weak.

(I wish I had $1 for every time a business owner asked me whether they should focus on Facebook or Google, without understanding their target audience or even knowing who they’re targeting, or what they're trying to achieve.)

As you read about each of these foundations, please just take a moment to consider whether you think you have them nailed or not. And if not – now could be a great time to pay them a little more attention.

Your Marketing Foundations

These are the foundations that EVERY business should have clarity on. Including yours. Here’s why – If you don’t, your marketing efforts are very likely to miss the mark.

These foundations include (but are not limited to):

1.      Know what you’re trying to achieve

a.      If you don’t know what you’re trying to achieve, it’s likely that your efforts will be scattered and reactive. To hit the bullseye, you probably need to know where it is first ;-).

2.      Be very clear on who your ideal customer is

a.      Ideally you will have a persona/avatar for each of the types of people that you want to sell to that helps you to understand who they are, what’s important to them, how they make buying decisions, what they’re afraid of, what problems they’re experiencing, what their aspirations are, what they’re interested in, what they read, watch and listen to etc.

3.      Make sure that you have a powerful Unique Selling Proposition (USP)

a.      It will help you to stand out from the crowd, and allow you to compete on aspects other than just price. In a sea of sameness the cheapest wins, and being the cheapest is often a race to the bottom. If you seem to be competing on price frequently - there’s a good chance that you don’t have a compelling or meaningful unique selling proposition, or that you’re not communicating it effectively.

4.      There’s gold in your database

a.      Do you have a database that’s in an easy to use format that allows you to send highly relevant and meaningful messages, to the right people, at the right time? If not, make this a priority.

b.      Why? As an example, email marketing to your existing database is still one of the smartest marketing activities around. One email I wrote for a client recently generated over $9,860 in sales in two days – and the entire exercise only cost $200.

c.      Use your database to build the relationship you have with clients – not just to endlessly pitch to them. Focus on adding value to your customer. Remember, one of the primary goals of email marketing is to stay front of mind (even if your customers don’t open it, they still see your name), and it allows you to be johnny on the spot if they, or someone they know have a need right now.

5.      Test and measure – know your numbers. Identify the lifetime value of a customer, and use this to define how much you’re willing to spend to acquire a customer (customer acquisition cost).

a.      Make sure you’re tracking and constantly improving your customer acquisition costs and costs per lead and action.

b.      It’s ideal if you can get to the point where you know that for every $1 you invest in marketing that you get a multiple of it back – eg $5, $10, $100. Consider this - if you knew that for every $1 spent on X that it made you $10, your marketing budget may not be quite so limited – right? And if you knew that every time you spend $1 on Y, you lose your $1 – you’d probably stop spending it – right?

6.      Solid marketing habits and routines in place

a.      What activities/practices do you have in place that will drive your marketing success, that you consistently implement – daily, weekly, monthly etc?

b.      As an example, do you schedule set times each week in your calendar devoted to pro-active marketing activities such as phoning prospects, creating campaigns, building relationships with potential collaborators/referrers, and tracking marketing performance and metrics. It's amazing what you can achieve in a couple of hours if you're focused and know what you need to be doing.

If you have all these foundations in place, you're a rock star ??. Well done!

And if you’d like to get smarter about your marketing – I’ve a simple little tool that I’ve created for you.

It’s a Marketing Self-Assessment Tool. It only takes 10 minutes, and it’s absolutely free. I’m 100% positive that it’ll spark some ideas, and help you to identify ways that you can get smarter with your marketing.

Sound like it could be helpful? You can download it at www.5stepsforsmartmarketing.com.

If you want to learn more about any of these concepts and the “how to’s”, please drop me a note and ask. (My contact details are in the free download). I’ll do whatever I can to help. I have free resources I'm happy to share, as well as paid ones, and shhh - I'm about to launch a "success based" marketing package.

We’re better together, so let’s help each other through this.

Ciao for now,

Lisa McCarthy x