Key Tips for Small Business Marketing in Tough Times

Economic realities worldwide are always characterized by ups and downs. This affects marketers a great deal. When the economy suffers an unexpected downturn just like we currently have with the covid-19 pandemic ravaging the world, smart marketers must be able to think outside the box for their businesses to survive. Generally, at such times, there is always the tendency for most marketers to focus mainly on how to cut costs and save money. That usually poses very huge challenges for many marketers. If fewer and fewer customers begin to spend less money on your business, you will be forced to lower your business expenses to help your cash flow if your business must survive the unexpected turn of events. Part of the things you must do to help your business is to explore credible ways to ramp up your marketing efforts to get more sales despite the tough times. That poses some challenges no doubt but if you are able to take full advantage of these here key tips, you may turn out better than many of your competitors.


 
Review Your Marketing Strategy

Tough economic times are usually very perfect times to test out new marketing strategies and products/services to meet people’s needs during the times. Therefore, ramping up or even changing your marketing strategy in addition to testing new tools is worth trying out. In fact, anything you can do in your business which helps to lower your marketing expenses is worth trying. Marketing experts advise that in tough economic times, you can even do more marketing at lower costs. One of the commonest ways to do this is to simply switch from paid ads to free ads using online media tools to promote your business. With free ads, it is possible to increase the intensity and frequency of your ads without any additional costs and you get good results.

Redirect Your Products Offering

At times of economic downturns, it is better to focus on changing up your products offerings to better meet the needs of your customers since as the economy changes, your customers’ needs change significantly as well. That is called business adaptation. Not many businesses can survive tough economic times if they’re unable to adapt to such changing times. So, in times of tough economic downturns, when customers realize that you are striving to meet their needs despite the tough times, they tend to continue their patronage in reciprocity.

Adopt Grassroots Marketing

Many marketing experts like to recommend a grassroots approach as an effective marketing strategy when the economy is down. Many others like to call it “reverting to old school” marketing strategy. It relies hugely on word-of-mouth marketing which is as old as marketing itself and still very effective as well. It costs next to nothing too to pass on your message from mouth to mouth. Word-of-mouth marketing could kick start by simply passing a message to just one person, a few individuals or a small group. The words get out of there by way of normal people to people social/business interactions and the message will spread wider and faster to a much larger audience. On and on it goes just like that and your business benefits as a result. You can easily pass on good words about your business if you can seize any opportunity to speak at some religious/community/social events. If somehow, you manage to get your audience curious and excited about your business, they remember and many will pass on the information which may earn recommendations and referrals for your business.

Segment Your Marketing

Market segmentation remains a very good marketing strategy particularly in tough economic times. Economic downturns usually affect different people in different ways. That is why it’s smart marketing to be able to gauge where your customers are at in the economic downturn and to segment your marketing to meet them where they are. It is futile to simply assume that some people have or haven’t been affected by an economic downturn. If you can properly survey your audience to gauge their needs, you can then correctly segment your marketing to meet those needs. Doing so enables you to market the right products to the right people at the right time and even in the right place. That can help to boost their patronage even in tough times. Market segmentation may seem like a little too much extra work, but you’ll realize it’s worth it when the results start coming in.

Stay Connected and Available to Your Customers

When customers realize that you really care about them no matter how tough the times are, they too will remember and care about you. Simply caving in and disappearing during economic downturns is bad for business. It pays to remain steadfast and available to your customers despite tough times. Many customers do appreciate that as a great sacrifice for them and many never forget. The good news is that with the depth and versatility of the Internet, staying connected with your customers is much easier and reliable these days. No matter how tough the times are, it is still very easy and free of cost to send out regular email newsletters with helpful information and tips. It is easy to also provide updates on your business by posting tips on social media at no cost at all.