Recessions Provide a Perfect Opportunity for Advertising to Do Its Job

Here is a link to an great article about what happens to aggressive marketers during a recession.

http://www.mactech.com:16080/adsales/recession_marketing/

Don’t drag your feet

I’m concerned.

I meet about 15 small business owners a week and I keep hearing the same thing.  “I think I’ll wait and see what happens with the economy before I make any decisions.”

I understand that fear can be paralyzing, but when the economy slows you need to act.  I heard a great quote the other day, unfortunately I can’t remember the author but it goes something like “When times are good you should advertise, when times are bad you must advertise.”

Make a plan, keep it simple but most importantly act, don’t drag your feet.

Why should someone buy from you?

This is a very difficult question to answer.

There are so many choices available today and when everything starts to seem the same, price becomes the deciding factor.

So how do you avoid the competing on price trap?

Answer these questions:

1. Why should someone buy from you over your competitor?
2. What does someone get from you that they don’t get from your competitor?
3. What can you deliver better than your competitor?
4. How important are these differences to your customers?
5. Why should your customer care?

Tough questions, but necessary.

Now I’m sorry to tell you this but you’re business is not unique?  I know you think it is, but its not.

You see, almost every business thinks it’s unique, but it’s not.

Why?

Have you heard of a USP – Unique Selling Proposition?  This is where you find something about your business that is unique to your business versus your competitors and you focus your selling and marketing message around this perceived advantage?  It must be a benefit to your customers and not easily copied.

That’s no easy feat.

It’s very rare that I’ve seen this accomplished. Oprah did it, and then came Dr. Phil, Ellen etc.  FedEx did it and then came UPS. McDonalds did it then came Wendy’s, Burger King etc.

You see many companies found something unique about them, but in the end they were all copied.  So their USP was not so unique.

What you need to focus on is your SSP; Sustainable Selling Proposition.  This is where you identify what is most important to your customers when they buy what you sell.  Then you build a customer experience that delivers around those reasons.

Study your customers. Study your competitors. Study your suppliers.  Learn what your customers perceive as value and what they could care less about.  Build a complete experience that makes the customer feel that you know them and understand them.

If you can do this, you have created your SSP, and customers will reward you with repeat purchases, referrals and profits.