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Marketing Strategies in a Tough Economy

Michael Beck

A weak economy presents a real marketing challenge. People drag their feet on buying decisions. The news is filled with bad financial news. So what's the consequence? Buyers are reluctant to take action. They hesitate to spend their money or make any kind of commitment.

So as sales professionals, we become persistent. After all, persistence pays off, right? Except after a while, our persistence feels like pestering (both to us and to them). Then we work on our powers of persuasion. But it seems that no matter how persuasive we are, people still balk; they hesitate to take action. Finally, as our frustrations rise, we resort to "closing techniques". We become assertive (contrary to our nature). But all to no avail. We only succeed at annoying or even alienating our prospective clients.

OK. So if none of these approaches work, then what will? How can you get people to take action? Before I answer that, we need to understand why those things don't work.

We react to things and situations in a pretty similar way to one another. So, I often suggest to the professionals I work with to use their own experience as their best example. Doing that allows us to put ourselves in our prospect's shoes. It isn't that hard to do, because we already are someone's a prospect! We're being marketed to all the time.

A good way to conduct this exercise is to sit yourself down (figuratively) in your chair, and answer a sales call from a sales professional just like you. Assume they want you to spend or invest $2,000 in their solution. Here are some questions to reflect on: If you really liked their solution, but were uncertain about your financial future, would you buy it now or wait? Unless it was something urgent, you'd probably wait. If the salesperson was more persistent, would it make a difference? Most likely not. How about better persuasion? It might change your mind, if the reasons were compelling enough. Would clever closing techniques and/or assertiveness cause you to act? In all likelihood no.

So the bottom line is that the marketing strategies discussed above won't work in a weak economy. There is an approach that will work in any economy, however. The most effective way to market is to work on relationship building.

By Michael Beck owner of ClientMonkey.com, a website dedicated to getting more clients, making more money, and having more fun! Receive a FREE program on recruiting