Contact Us


Duct Tape Marketing

Duct Tape Book

Free Social Media for Business ebook

Social Media for Small Business
John Jantsch Marketing Coach
About John Jantsch

Recent Posts

Entire Archive

  • Categories

  • Categories
    • Mon Apr 14, 2008

    Narrowly fending off a recession

    Consider subscribing to my blog's RSS feed. It's sticky

    Narrow focusI can’t believe of the number of stories I’ve read in the last few weeks about the downturn in the small business economy. One of the natural advantages to small business is that recessions don’t really have the same impact - I mean, many small businesses just need eight more customers to have an up year, right.

    And, the typical small business can bob and weave in a moment’s notice and, in some cases, completely remake themselves if a certain market direction dries up. So let’s be careful about talking ourselves into all this doom and gloom.

    Some marketing experts may advise you to expand your marketing reach when times are tough, but I believe the opposite is true. (In fact, the only thing you should do in good times and bad is the right thing - bad times just seem to have a way of getting your attention.)

      The most effective strategy you can adopt now and in the future is to think narrow.

    • Narrow your target market focus - define who makes an ideal customer and who doesn’t - serve only one of them
    • Narrow your core marketing message - find a way to stand out to be different and build all of your lead activities around owning that difference, that word
    • Narrow the gap between you and your customer - build community around your current customers, bring them into your marketing mix, ask them what they think, give them something they didn’t expect, help them get more of what they want, call them for no reason at all - and build through their referrals

    If you can become known by a very narrow target market for doing something very specifically unique in a way that your customers adore, you will no longer compete on price and no longer live at the mercies of the ups and downs beyond your control.

    Talk of a good old recession can be good for business as it has a tendency to weed out competitors who believe that cutting their prices is the way to a turn around!

    Share and Enjoy:
    • Digg
    • Sphinn
    • del.icio.us
    • Facebook
    • Mixx
    • Google
    • Reddit
    • StumbleUpon
    • Technorati
    • TwitThis

    Posted by: John Jantsch on Apr 14, 08 | 12:12 pm
    Category: Entrepreneur, Marketing Strategy, Referral Marketing, Strategic Partnering | Tags:

    « Stunning images the easy way | Home | David Allen Live on Duct Tape Marketing »
    • Good points, John. Seems the more the press talk about how bad things are, the more people believe it...a self-fulfilling prophecy. Getting business owners to change their strategy rather than cutting prices is one of the hardest things to do in times like these.
    • Excellent suggestions John!

      I agree that focus is incredibly important during tough times like a recession. I am finding this to be true during a business launch as well. The more focused you are, the better chance you have to be something special and unique to a few customers instead of trying to be everything "vanilla" to a whole bunch of customers! Really, as a small business, this should be your strategy all the time.
    • Great Post. The recession hasn't had the same impact over in Canada. I read some recent stats that said US spending is down while Canada's remains the same. But excellent advice for small businesses.
    • You're so right. The instinct is to toss those nets out even wider and farther, expending so much more energy and likely not gathering in any more than before and then be left with half the resources to do it again. So it makes more sense to nurture the current clients and then narrow, narrow, narrow. Seems so counter-human-nature, but it does make sense.

      btw - we hear the same reports about nationwide doom and yet the economy is Dallas-Fort Worth is really strong. Areas of problem I'm sure, but good overall.
    • John, I believe you are 100% correct. If anything (and maybe that's what you are saying) a recession is good from my business because my clients are for real, not tire kickers.
    • Well put, John. It helps to have a business that provides essential services to other businesses, rather than focusing on selling luxuries to the public, in times of economic crisis.
    • Business is about adding value to others and it's the business owners that understand that you need to give massive value first before you get the money that will make money in this recession.

      Get narrow, add value and have fun because people like spending money with people who are having fun.
    • Well said, John. Businesses should focus on the 20% that result in 80% of the revenue. There are also alternative marketing strategies that are effective but low cost.

      I have written an article about this about two weeks ago. I hope you don't mind if I share it with your readers.

      http://marketingloop.com/small-business-marketi...
    • Being all things to all people never works well and as you write, can be detrimental to keeping the attention of the people who are really looking for your services.
    • Whether there is a recession or not, the media has made the downturning economy an issue for both business and consumers...Your post points out that there are many recession-proof strategies. Protecting your niche and realigning goals with customers will benefit a business during and after slow economic times.
    • John, I agree with all the above and would add that businesses also need to focus on what they can control during this time – the execution of their marketing strategies.

      My addition to your list would be: Narrow your marketing goals - evaluate your current marketing goals and re-focus to create distinct and measurable goals to map to the overall company mission.

      While outside resources may change, your mission and goals should remain steadfast.
    • The beauty of small business is it's diversity and versatility.. A savvy small business person can turn almost any bad situation around, nothing is quite as manouverable as a small business for ducking in and out of traps that bog down larger, less flexible organisations..
    • The media feeds this "recession destroys small business" mentality, if people were left to figure things out on their own half of them would probably do what they always do, take advantage of the flexibility of small business, and survive...
    • Rob
      Hi John,

      The biggest problem for small busnesses is that they may talk themselves into the state of recession, even if the recession doesn't happen. My stance is to keep positive and energetic in your marketing. If you are evangelistic about your product and give it the effort to promote yourself, then some of that enthusiasm will rub off.

      keep sending out the duct tape. Great post

      cheers
      Rob Wendes
      Nicecupoftea ltd
      Lancashire
      UK
    • I especially like the last comment John, bringing customers into the conversation is the only way to go!
    • Great tips for a small biz. during a recession. We have found that by narrowing our focus and getting rid of some of high maintenance accounts we actually gained more profit!
    • Right on as usual. It’s often executing on the simple things that can have a great impact.

      I often suggest for retail businesses that they start by putting out a signup form at their checkout that says “join our preferred customer mailing list” and have a line for their name and email address. It’s amazing how fast you can build a list of interested customers (whom you can engage to bring back to your business) if you simply just ask them for their permission to stay in touch.
    • Interesting post.

      However, i have to step in the proverbial pile and disagree on some levels. Once In a recession, you should do everything you can to nurture and streamline your efforts. But heading into one, thats the time to pick up momentum so that you can coast to the top of what could be a very long up-hill struggle.

      Not diversifying, especially for small businesses with few customers can be deadly, simply beause you don't know that the few customers you have will be doing the right things and surviving.

      If your stremlined and tightened target group is the one hit the hardest or just first in a recession. Or too many of your customers fall by the wayside by chance alone. You will find yourself stuck with a narrow field of diminishing possibilities.

      The only real way to recession proof your business is to make sure that your customers are numerous and strong enough to get you through it.

      Since when did all our eggs belong in too few baskets?

      Also, if a recession is the signal for anyone to start listening to the customers. They are probably too late in any case.
    • Hat off to you John - great advice and common sense. Counter intuitive for the first area of spend to get cut when times are tough - marketing.

      We're about to focus our rifle on some select big clients, and sharpen our message. Thanks.
    • I like the idea of focus (thinking narrowly) in all economic times, but especially during economic challenges.

      One theme I've been discussing with my marketing team is how to do more with less. In times like this, we're taking a cold, hard look at all of our lead generation activities and figuring out which we can forgo in favor of more efficient methods.

      One of the intiatives we're looking at is better lead nurturing of our existing prospect database. We're designing campaigns for those who have already responded to us, but haven't yet purchased. So far, we've "woken up" about 20% of our database of leads who went cold on us over the past 24 months. And our cost per new opportunity was miniscule compared to new lead generation activities.

      The other thing we've been focusing on is lead management using lead scoring. (I've blogged about this a few times this year). Lead scoring helps us figure out who is most ready to engage with us, and who is not yet ready to buy. With longer buying cycles in a tight economy, knowing who to engage with is pretty important.

      My heart was gladdened by John's last comment about the tough economy weeding out knockoff competitors. If there's a silver lining to a challenging environment, it's the knowledge that those who survive will ultimately thrive when the tide turns.
    • i think that we should take care our customer in a economic downturn. And then, we shoud build customer relationship management database. The most important thing that we must monitor is our environment such as macro and micro environment.they are political, economics,social and technological,......
    blog comments powered by Disqus


    Search Socially

    Lijit Search

    Small Business Marketing Magazines


    Free - No strings attached - Business and Marketing Magazine Subscriptions

    Target Marketing
    CRM
    Internet Retailer
    eWeek
    Electronic Publisher
    Print Media and more


    Creative Commons License
    This work is licensed under a Creative Commons
    Attribution-NonCommercial
    -NoDerivs 2.5 License    .
    Get mobile version of Duct Tape Marketing
    Subscribe



    Subscribe to the Duct Tape Podcast
    subscribe via iTunes

    Duct Tape Marketing System

    Duct Tape Marketing System

    Duct Tape System - Complete small business marketing system in 14 workbooks and 4 audio CDs.


    Marketing Plan Pro powered by Duct Tape Marketing

    Marketing Plan Pro

    The Duct Tape Marketing System now comes as Marketing Planning Software. We teamed up with Palo Alto Software, the makers of Business Plan Pro, to bring you the most powerful small business marketing plan tool going. More info here . . .


    Referral Flood by John Jantsch

    Referral Flood by John Jantsch

    Referral Flood - How to create a flood of new business without spending one dime on advertising - by John Jantsch

    Subscribe to my weekly newsletter



    After you hit subscribe button page will refresh and you are good to go


    Connect Socially