One of the reasons
I feel I’ve always been successful is I watch what others are doing around me, and emulate their success.
If you watch any television lately, or open up any newspaper, you must have noticed the influx of ads by Wal-Mart. They’re everywhere. Last night as I watched Dancing With The Stars, I noticed several commercials each break were from this discount giant.
And they aren’t focusing on having the lowest prices. Just giving you value for your dollar.
You can learn a lot from a company like this.
1. Don’t stop marketing or slow it down in difficult economic times. Increase it. While others are shutting down, you can actually reach out to more people and have your message heard loud and clear because you don’t have a lot of competition. And you may get great deals on some advertising because they’re having trouble as well and welcome the
2. Repeating is okay. Wal-Mart has just a handful of ads that they play over and over again. It’s not the amount of content they put in front of you. It’s the message they’re trying to convey. They simply want you to know where you can get the most value, especially in tough times.
3. Have a clear message. Instead of moving forward with a ton of ideas and a ton of approaches, keep it simple. Because we’re all bombarded with information, and have a ton of things happening in our personal lives, the last thing we want is to have to think about more. Combined with repeating a message again and again, your message will come through loud and clear.
4. Use a few channels well. Have you ever bounced around from advertising method to advertising method? It’s easy to do as there is so many different things available. Instead, choose a few that have potential of reaching a huge portion of your market, and saturate it. The more people see you, the more they’ll recognize you, and the more they’ll convert.
5. Promote in a simple manner. You don’t need bells and whistles. You don’t need the top of the line presentation. Sometimes simple is better. Create your message and get it heard. As long as its professional, your audience will be content with the message, and have no concerns over its delivery method.
6. Use your time wisely. Wal-Mart doesn’t put one commercial on every hour. They place two or three in every break. That’s traction. They know their audience and they make sure their audience sees them. Over and over again.
7. Think big. Instead of jumping into the latest fad, and moving on the next week, think about the basics. What is going to make your business grow over the next year? How can you do something today that will impact you on December 31, 2009? Always plan for the future before you take action today.
This completely missed the mark for my business.
The trouble is, we’re not all Wal-Marts. We don’t have huge budgets. We don’t make our money pushing low-cost items that people need — like food and clothes. Too many of us — myself included — have seen advertising dollars absolutely wasted on channels that just don’t deliver customers.
I sell a high-ticket item — helicopter charters and multi-day excursions. As the economy sinks lower and lower into the financial abyss, my business is drying. I’ve pulled ALL of my advertising, with the exception of already printed rack cards that I can distribute for free, and am saving thousands of dollars a year. I call this “hunker down mode.” Reduce costs and wait it out. New business is still coming in slowly and it’s the kind of business I prefer anyway: high-ticket excursions and custom charter work. Instead of flying 8 times a week and bringing in $5000, I’m flying 2 times a week and bringing in $3000 to $4000. The folks with the big money will always have it, but they don’t rely on traditional advertising channels to find service providers. Word of mouth is my best and cheapest advertising method right now.
I guess what I think you should have done here is to make it clear what kind of business you’re talking about. We’re not all Wal-Marts and most of us simply can’t afford to keep going full tilt when the economy is down and customers are scarce.
Hi Maria
Thanks for your comments. I agree, every business is different in the way they handle the economy. And a lot of it comes down to knowing who your clients are and reaching out to them in the most efficient way possible.
I congratulate you on bringing in more per client right now than ever before. It sounds like this economy really has you focused on reaching down to who your true client is and giving them what they want. Maybe it also made you realize a change was needed in the clients you are targeting, and finding out how you can work less and earn more per client. Hopefully you’ll take that into the future as well and continue building the higher end clients over time.
Good luck with your future business. I know your business will be just fine.
Lori