Recession Marketing
In previous articles, we have talked about how recessions may actually be beneficial for many businesses.
One area where you may want to think about turning a recession to your advantage is the marketing of your small business.
People Do NOT Stop Buying
Many businesses make the mistake of thinking that people stop buying during a recession. That is a mistake.
The fact is, most people still spend the same percentage of their income on the same items during a recession, it’s just that that income goes down.
Everyone still needs to make purchases from time to time – and odds are that if they needed what your business offered before, they still do.
In fact, even if you have a small business that specializes in goods that aren’t exactly necessary, odds are that you will still have customer support during leaner times.
One only has to look at the role the recession played in election campaigns all over North America in the last six months to see that recession marketing can play a big part in the success of any promotional efforts.
Recession Marketing 101
So just how can you go about taking advantage of the recession in the marketing sense? Well, the first step is to let potential customers know that you empathize with their situation.
The beginning parts of any marketing campaign should demonstrate that you realize there is a recession going on and that your business has made the necessary adjustments to ride it out.
Next comes the part that we call baiting the hook. At this stage, you want to tie your product in with surviving a downturn in the economy.
You might want to relate lower costs to a lack of overhead, incredible purchasing power, and so on. Even higher ticketed items have advantages in recession marketing; make sure potential customers know that product is likely to last much longer, for example.
The key to recession marketing is to remember that a recession isn’t a depression. People are still buying, they are just being much more careful about what they buy.
With some empathy and a little bit of savvy, you can convince people that your product or service is still worth using during leaner times.
