Accelerate out of recession
Posted January 14th, 2010 by Dom McGrail
When your customers and prospects start thinking about reinvesting in the services or products you provide, you must make sure your business is at the front of the queue; ready to pick up those early orders. 
Ok so how does that work in practice?
STEP 1 Your brand
The first thing to consider is; does your business look presentable? Is your brand looking tired, both from a design and a delivery perspective?
Have changes over the last few years to your products, services or markets been considered? Does your brand represent your business with authenticity, is it still relevant to your target audience?
Broken signs, poorly produced marketing material, no consistency in brand sizes or colours? If this is how you deliver your brand would you be surprised if your customers were confused or just plain disinterested in you?
STEP 2 Your marketing material
Is your marketing material upto date? Have you got the latest information on your products and services in an easily deliverable format, ready and waiting to go out to an eager prospect? Can you post upto date leaflets or brochures? Email a PDF or a link to an e.brochure? Or point them to your web site?
STEP 3 Your web site
It’s one of the first places your prospects are likely to check, so is your web site upto date? Are there still old news stories hanging around like a bad smell? Does it contain all the current information about your business, your services or products as well as your people? Out of date information will make your company look tired, which is hardly a great impression to make in the newly energised economy.
STEP 4 Making regular contact.
It might be a while since you contacted your existing customers or new prospects. You simply might not have had anything new to say. Well a brand facelift, some new product or service based marketing material, an updated web site and e.brochure are all great ways to start a fresh dialogue.
And what better way than a targeted and regular email campaign; using an email distribution provider (like us) is an ideal way of delivering a professionally managed email campaign and getting back the right data. Data on which emails made it through, how many were opened, which links were followed and was your email forwarded.
STEP 5 New opportunities
Have you investigated the new and emerging social networks? Networks such as Linkedin, Facebook, Twitter can all provide opportunities to promote your business products or services. Get on before your competitors.
STEP 6 The budget
OK so what about the cost? Well of course it’s going to cost because all businesses need to invest in growth, otherwise you’ll end up going backwards. But it doesn’t have to cost a fortune. Tidying up a web site or adding a simple content management tool that allows you to update your web content, won’t break the bank.
Starting to build your email marketing list now could save you plenty of time and money in the future. And creating marketing emailers isn’t as expensive as you might think.
What of the traditional brochure or catalogue – well why not forget the print run? Or at the very least reduce the number of copies dramatically. Create an e.brochure or e.catalogue instead. Easy to link to or email with no print costs. You’ll even be helping the environment!
If you’d like to know more get in touch and we’ll happily evaluate your brand and marketing material and give you some considered and (hopefully) insightful advice.
