Deer-in-the-headlights marketing: riding the downturn

Posted on | July 18, 2008 | Comments Off

I’m a little late today. Long story.

These days, there seem to be a lot of people around sporting that DITH look — you know, the panic-stricken look that says I’m about to get hit by an 18-wheeler!

Even if you’re not feeling that way about your routine marketing chores, you may be feeling that way about the general direction of the economy or, alternatively, the general direction of your cash flow. Let’s face it, whatever the numbers say, the economy is not a pretty picture right now.

And yet, I’m sure you’ve been hearing a lot of folks saying that you can’t cut back on your marketing because you’re trying to save your pennies. And, you ask yourself, how can I not cut back on my marketing when times are this tight?

There’s a way to think about that, of course. When times are tight, you focus your time, energy and what money you have to spare on things that will bring in revenue. You cut the thing that cost and don’t either (a) pay for themselves or (b) bring a significant return in the investment.

And, to tell you the truth, that’s how you should be thinking about your business all the time, no matter what the economy is doing. Which means, if you are thinking about it in the best possible way, that you should be doing pretty much the same things when the economy is soaring as you do when it is cheerfully splashing its way down the toilet.

That may be a little hard to swallow for the DITH crowd, of course. We are twitchy about marketing in the best of times. But our reasons for being twitchy have less to do with money than they have to do with the degree to which we have discovered ways to do marketing without wanting to retch.

One of the least nauseating marketing methods around, which often costs nothing, is simply to get people to talk about you. And there are any number of ways to do that.

Most obvious is to do something remarkable. Might be obvious but easier said than done. Most of us kind of cringe while we are trying to think of remarkable things to do, stuck in those lessons we learned as children about the virtues of modesty and humility.

Another way to get people talking about you is to simply be very, very good. In many ways, that’s remarkable all by itself, and people will discuss it.

You can as easily be very helpful or very social (visible).

No need to promise anybody the moon or untold riches or anything else you probably can’t deliver. No need to pretend to be something you’re not. No need to befuddle people with so much copy that they run screaming from your site.

And the best part about them is that they are marketing methods that are free.

Another nice thing about them is that they require nothing from you other than that you be yourself. This is probably true of all businesses that are not run by committee but it is definitely true of the average microbusiness. Your very best marketing tool is yourself, who you are and what you’re about.

In fact, that is precisely why everything you do is marketing. And that, in its turn, makes marketing kind of easy, doesn’t it?

Breathe, people.

(Pause for musical interlude … )

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For more on marketing think during a downturn: Mary Schmidt agrees with George Bush (Egad!)

[tags]marketing, microbusiness, economy[/tags]


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Category: Friday Musical Interludes, Marketing


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