Thriving in a "Bad Economy" and Becoming Memorable |

Thriving in a “Bad Economy”

MORE PROMOTION MEANS MORE BUSINESS

Yesterday, a buddy, Eric Zimmerman (an extraordinary musician), and I, were discussing the concept of thriving in an unfriendly economy. We both considered it interesting that in our society, some businesses react to the notion of a “bad economy” by cutting back on their promotion. Of course the end result of that is a contracted business. The answer to an expanded business is the opposite: MORE PROMOTION. Not only would more marketing be necessary to attain expansion even in the best of times, but more promotion can have a disproportionate advantage in times such as now, if some percentage of your competitors are cutting back their promotion.

For example, if one is selling “music services,” into a particular niche market, such as “musical services for weddings,” and if there are fewer businesses promoting that service “because of the economy,” that just means your own promotion has more opportunity to be seen.

Regardless of the economy, people are still getting married, and weddings are still an exceptionally important event for the couple, their families and their friends, and wedding services are still in demand.

BECOMING MEMORABLE

Part of promoting one’s services is getting people’s attention and getting them to remember you, and one way is to give something away that is valuable to the potential clients that are visiting one’s site. To continue the “musical services for weddings” example, an idea would be to make available an instant download on “The 5 Steps to Hiring Professional Musicians for a Wedding,” or “The Number One Mistake Couples Make When Hiring Music Services For a Wedding.” There are many variations of this concept, but the point is to give something to visitors, that would be valuable to them, which will increase the likelihood that they’ll remember you when it comes time to make buying decisions. Of course, if you ask visitors to provide their email in exchange for the instant free download, then you have an opportunity to provide them even more free information, while building a relationship. (Sign up for “The 7 Orbits of Internet Marketing” for more info).

If YOU were getting married and you had a whole bunch of services that needed to be obtained, who do you think YOU would choose if one of them gave you some important information that helped you?

Really, as a business person, you are simply demonstrating the exceptional service you provide by offering some of your knowledge, for free, which is a simple part of the marketing game.