MARKETING EXPOSED

“I just LOVE recessions!” 

I was a young – and at that moment dumbfounded – advertising seller being lectured to by one of my better clients back in the time of the first Gulf War in 1991.  His family owned a downtown shoe store for a 100 or so years in my town.

“When times are good all these fly-by-night operations open up to take advantage of opportunities.  But when things go bad, they get fearful and pull back and then they start going away.  But I just keep doing what I always do.  Advertise.  Sell.  And serve.  Yep, recessions are a good thing.  Because that’s also when I get all my market share back.”

Do you have that sort of courage and foresight?  To see a recession as an opportunity?  Businesses that do and who “stay the course” during recessions remain viable during that time.  But after the recession is when they’re really poised to reap big returns.

An exhaustive McGraw-Hill Study of the 1981-82 recession surveyed a 6-year period before and after that recession.  Here was the focus of their findings:

“Companies that maintained or upped their marketing during the 1981–82 recession, had gains in sales in the short-run as well as the long-run. The McGraw-Hill Research study analyzed 600 companies from 1980 to 1985, and found those that advertised aggressively throughout the recession had sales 256% higher than ones who cut back on advertising.”

People don’t stop having trigger events that cause them to buy just because times are tight.  But they definitely become more picky about FROM WHOM they’ll buy. 

When you take the typical approach of pulling back the reigns you soon disappear from their minds, or leave doubt.  Meanwhile the business that sees the opportunity and continues to consistently focus on value and trust takes a lead position.  Familiarity breeds trust.   And that trust can be cemented further by taking advantage of social marketing via avenues such as Twitter or Facebook.

Another ironic phenomenon of a recession is that because so many businesses do cut back, there are fewer proactively communicating messages.  Particularly on the traditional mass media venues.  This means that even a very small business can suddenly have a much larger “share of voice”.  Your business becomes one of the few, if not the only, businesses within your category still aggressively out there talking to prospecive customers.  And cementing relationships even during the storm.

I’m not sure any of us can go so far as to say something like “I love recessions.”  But can you see the advantage and opportunity that awaits the courageous and aggressive business during that time?  Do you have the stomach to reach for it?

- Steve

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After having initially published a draft of this I came across a great piece in a recent issue of The New Yorker on this very same topic.  It’s quite a worthwhile read.  Click here .

Photo credit: Shootingsnow