Jim's Marketing Blog

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My recent posts on how to thrive during the current crisis have been extremely popular with readers, so today I wanted to share some more thrive-related ideas with you.

I heard a business owner on the radio yesterday. He was talking about the coronavirus and how it’s hitting the economy. He said he’s waiting for things to improve, before deciding what to do.

In business, there is indeed a time for waiting.

The time for waiting comes after you’ve planted the seeds and put your ideas into play. It’s at this point that you need to be patient and wait for your harvest to grow.

However, patience is not a virtue if a business owner does nothing and waits for their problem to solve itself. Waiting for cash flow to magically improve is not a virtue. Waiting for new clients or customers to unexpectedly arrive isn’t a virtue either. And today, that’s what many business owners are doing.

Other business owners are being proactive

They’re working hard and planting, but they’re failing to plant the specific seeds required, to combat the business impact of the current crisis. And they’re waiting.

Like the guy on the radio I mentioned at the beginning, they’re treating it as if this is just ‘a bit of a quiet period’. When in fact, it’s a global pandemic, a human disaster, which is crippling economies.

They’re doing what they usually do, but this is not business as usual.

A better approach

A radically different economy, with radically different problems, demands a radically different approach. Ramping up your ad spend won’t work. Increasing the frequency of your marketing won’t work.

In fact, doing more of whatever you usually do won’t work. It can’t work, because volume isn’t the problem. Your marketing must speak to the new needs and new wants of your marketplace.

• It needs to take their problems into account. Figure out how your services can help them right now and communicate it as well as you possibly can.
• It needs to be well thought out.
• It needs to address the crisis head-on.
• It needs to be 100% THEM focused.
• It needs to be as human as possible. Everyone is impacted by this challenge. People are worried, so ditch the hard sell bullshit.

You and your business absolutely can thrive in this economy.

I’m working daily with business owners, who are enjoying outstanding results, by being highly relevant to the new needs of their marketplace. This opportunity exists because their competitors are doing what they always do, and today, that means they’ll be ignored.

Your competitors will largely be just as irrelevant, presenting you and your business with the same opportunity to thrive.

I hope you found this useful. More importantly, I hope it inspires you to improve the focus of your marketing.

Photo: Shutterstock.

I wrote recently that your marketing is toast. That’s to say, what motivated people to hire you or buy from you before the coronavirus pandemic, has changed. In that post, I provide some ideas to help you put things right.

Today, I want to help you identify and fix another two, extremely widespread marketing challenges.

Check your marketing promises and guarantees

I’d like to start by drawing your attention to the various benefits of buying from you or hiring you. Specifically, the guarantees and promises you offer. That’s because almost every business makes promises in their marketing, which they can reliably keep in normal times, but can’t achieve in the current economy.

These vary from industry to industry and may include things like:

• Guaranteed delivery times.
• Payment terms.
• Guaranteed results.
• Price match promises.
• Enquiry response times.
• Opening hours.

Obviously, if you’re no longer able to fulfil any of the promises or claims in your marketing, make the required adjustments. Also, look for new, attractive promises that you can deliver on.

What’s new with your competitors?

I also very strongly recommend you take time to do a little research on what your competitors are doing right now.

That’s because it’s entirely possible some of them will have made significant changes, which could impact your business. Even those competitors that seldom change their marketing may be forced into action, as they try new things in order to adapt to the current challenges.

Again, these adjustments will change from industry to industry and may include:

• Discounting their prices or fees. Many will start discounting, because they have no expert marketing help, are panicking and assume slashing prices is the right thing to do. (It absolutely isn’t for a number of very good reasons).
• Changes to their payment terms.
• New bundling of products or services together, in a way that makes them more attractive to prospective clients (your prospective clients) than they used to be.

Once you know what you’re competing against, you can look for ways to regain your competitive advantage.

I hope you found these ideas useful. If you did, please continue to share them with your friends. We’re all in this together.