Re: marketing in the Post-dot.com bomb era

From: Laura Bell <writer_at_well.com>
Date: Mon 27 Aug 2001 10:30:12 -0500

Nobody ever said being a marketing person was going to be an
easy way to make a living. CEOs were also not promised easy
street. Since the dot-com downturn, here are a few things we
know for sure and a few more we should probably be reminded of.

  -Only the strong survive when recessions hit or the threat
  of a recession is looming. Throw out the outdated notion that
  cutting back on advertising and marketing revenues is the way
  to increase your stretched bottom line and bank account.

  -Short term decision making to save dollars can land you
  out of business in a very short time.

  -History has proven that the few who blossom when the rest
  of the world is busy shifting gears or afraid to spend ad
  dollars, are not around when the market comes back.

  -Never has it been so important to see what your competition
  is doing. Make sure that your business strategy includes an
  answer to how they are seeing the horizon at the end of the
  storm. If they are playing a "denial game" as to how bad it
  really is, be sure and capitalize on it. Move full steam ahead.
  Fill in all the gaps and possibilities they may miss.

  -Don't be afraid to reinvent yourself. Especially, if you
  are selling products. Shift the products you offer. Shift
  the pricing strategy. If one strategy stops, find out where
  the money from your customers is going.

  -Offer them all the incentives you can truly afford to get them
  back in buying. Look at all the inventive strategies automotive
  companies use during economic stressful times. If you sell more
  consumer than durable goods, find a comparison that will be help
  in the market.

Now may be a good time to change your pricing strategy as
well as your employee incentive/wages compensation. Offer any
employee extra vacation hours and things he or she might pick for
any help in saving the company money and coming up with a good
marketing plan. Be sure to give the person who contributes valid
recognition for the work.

Branding has never been so important. Invent ways to keep
your name, your services and your product out in front of those who
can bring you new business. Customers when scared, translation,
are changing their liquidity preferences as we speak, are going to
go with the guy who keeps reminding them about what great deals
there are to be had when he visits your place of business.

Nothing challenges business and the souls of the stout-hearted
more thoroughly than the threat of a recession. Don't, however,
play a game of denial. There is only end result to such thinking.
The bankruptcy courts are already too crowded.


Laura Bell
626-798-5968
103505.1632_at_compuserve.com
writer_at_well.com



Received on Mon Aug 27 2001 - 10:30:12 CDT