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Making the Recession Work for You

Staying alive in the economic slump for most companies means something has to go. While advertising and marketing are often the first to be hit, there may be ways of using the recession as a unique selling point. The experts suggest the marketing focus needs to shift, from a general offering to one that is specific about how a product or service can help customers who are also cutting back.

Bob Seelert, the chairman of ad agency Saatchi and Saatchi explains that in this environment, companies need to reframe the value of their products to make them relevant for today.

In a recent BBC interview, Seelert said, with a detergent, it's important " to remind consumers that its colour integrity features, keep your new dress looking newer longer, because the colour survives through more washes. So that makes it relevant in the tough economic times when you aren't going to buy a dress as often as you'd like." Seelert says,even if they are more expensive,"if they offer good and lasting value, those are the things you are going to want to buy in tough economic times."

It is the same in the B2B market, according to David Lester,of marketing and appointment generating company Achieving Quality Leads. He says even in a harsh economy, there's a need to provide information about products, perhaps more than when times are good.

"If you accept that you need to be out there, making prospective customers aware of your offering, then it's important to find a way in, and we've found that a good way to do that is repositioning a product or service, emphasizing it's quality and good value, that will provide savings, durability, reduced downtime, in an economy where those are really substantial benefits."

"We have just completed a successful campaign for a high value industrial pump distributor that also does repairs and refurbishment. We scored a high number of appointments by emphasizing how our client could help food manufacturers extend the life of their current investment in pumps. We also suggested that the pumps currently being used may breaking down because they were not right for the job, posing the question,' how much production time are you losing when your pumps are down?' It got the prospect thinking and we got our clients high level appointments."

Lester says cutting out the marketing spend can have long term ramifications. Even with a reduced budget, it's how you focus it that counts. Lester warns, "from a marketing perspective, keeping your head down in a recession is dangerously close to keeping your head in the sand."

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