Recovery Marketing – Hop on and Take a RideWritten by Alfred J. Lautenslager
A little over a year ago and probably before, articles started popping up all over place about, "Selling in Tough Times," , "How To Market in a Down Economy," and like. Now that we have seen a few, more positive headlines starting to sprinkle throughout, "Turning Economical Corner,", "Have We Hit Bottom,", what now? For sake of prognostication, let me review. No I am not driving car by only looking in rear view mirror. When times got tough, managers all over place looked for places to cut costs. Marketers looked for newer places to sell and to sell more. Some business managers cut marketing and sales expenses. Let me state here, once and very clearly, that is WRONG thing to do. Jay Conrad Levinson of guerrilla marketing fame says that "recessionary marketing" is a real opportunity. Bear with me on this review as we approach some new thoughts on "recovery marketing." During tough times, customers are looking for real value. Effective marketing points out that real value to customers with ensuing result of increased sales and increased share of market. What Jay Levinson state for "recessionary marketing" applies to "turning –the-corner-and-coming-back" marketing, or "recovery marketing" as well; maybe even more. During recovery, lots of positioning is occurring, while at same time skeptics are still about. During recovery some people choose as their favorite form of transportation to be hopping on to a bandwagon. Once bandwagon fills up, companies look around at each other and start to feel that it is almost too late to start up aggressive marketing once again. The same old adage applies to marketing much like it does to work… "It's easier to keep it up than catch it up." Borrowing from "recessionary marketing" and applying same mind set, thought processes and applications to recovery marketing, will further separate marginal companies from successful ones. Recovery marketing boils down to investing in three things that should have been invested in when times got tough. 1.)increase size of orders 2.)increase frequency of orders 3.)The third item, but more costly is to increase number of customers you sell to. Enhanced marketing programs and increased investment in marketing accomplishes above items. Free samples, seminars, consulting, and speeches, are incentives for customer to buy more and to do it more often. Now is time to put that marketing line item expense back into budget. Prioritize 3 recovery marketing initiatives now, don't deviate and certainly don't cut expense or investment that is made. We'll leave concepts of consistency, persistency and long term thinking to other marketing articles. Here are a few recovery tactics that will help your positioning as customers and prospects decide where to spend their growing dollars earned from a recovering economy. Publicity – If you don't already have a PR program in place, start one now. There are a multitude of reasons to write a press release. Focus on one editor and get something published. This is free marketing and an effective technique that shows up in all "marketing in tough times" articles.
| | Selling To Baby Boomers? Power Charge Your Sales By Segmenting This Huge GroupWritten by Joanne Fritz, Ph.D.
To get a handle on Baby Boom market, try using “cohort” principle to segment this huge group. The Baby Boom covers 17 years, from 1946 to 1963. Depending on when baby boomers were born, there are specific external influences and events that helped shape them. Assuming that our peak formative years are 18-24...when what is going on around us will have greatest effect on who we are, there are a number of cohorts within baby boom generation. Here are three examples: Boomers born in ‘46 would have been in their peak formative years between ‘64 and ‘71. They would have been affected by Vietnam, LBJ years, Berkeley’s free speech movement, riots in Watts and Detroit, seeing first man on moon, Woodstock, and using first hand held calculator, among other things. If born in 1955, boomers would hit peak influence between ‘73 and ‘80, being influenced by getting out of Vietnam, Roe vs Wade, Nixon’s resignation, Iranian hostages, Love Canal, 3 mile Island, and first Apple computer. Boomers born in 1963 would experience peak influence between ‘81 and ‘88 when they would live with Ronald Reagan’s presidency, see Bell System break-up, experience Challenger explosion, and celebrate fall of Berlin Wall. In addition, each of these groups is in a different life phase. The leading edge of Boomers is approaching 60 today. They are new "mature market." But, they are very different from people now in their 60s and beyond. That generation lived through World War II. The people ahead of them lived through depression.
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