Top Tips for Small Businesses Marketing in a Recession

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The UK is now officially in a recession and the downturn in consumer spending is hitting businesses hard. Many small businesses will rein in costs, looking to cut overheads and unnecessary spending on order to survive the tough economic climate. The budget for Marketing is often one of the first expenses to be cut seen by many small businesses as being a 'non-essential' cost. But can businesses survive a recession if they are not communicating their offering to their target market?

Don't fade away
If small businesses decide to pull all of their marketing resources they are in great danger of fading away. Competitors who are maintaining a good level of marketing activity will then swoop in and take their market share, pushing them out of the market and inevitably out of business. Marketing is all about knowing what your customers want, tailoring your offering around that need and communicating the benefits you can offer them. If you stop telling customers why they should buy from you they will simply stop buying from you and loose confidence in your brand.  

Small businesses shouldn't assume that customers stop spending during a recession, consumers just tend to buy differently. Businesses need to adapt their marketing strategy to suit the current economic climate, communicating to the customer why they should buy from them. Tell customers why they should spend their money with you and give them good reason to do so by communicating your unique benefits which sets you apart from your competitors. Customers want to feel as though they are getting a good deal, so creating special offers and promotions will help to pull in price conscious customers who are looking for good value.

Cost effective marketing tools
Small businesses don't need to have a large budget for marketing in order to obtain results, they simply need to utilise the most cost effective marketing tools in order to attract customers. Here are a few of our tips to help small businesses achieve the most cost effective marketing strategy during a recession:

Wide Marketing Mix 
Try several marketing techniques which are low cost and therefore low risk.  Cost effective marketing tools can include social networking, affiliate marketing, PR, email campaigns and search engine marketing.

Know what works
 When you undertake marketing activities always ensure that you measure and analyse its effectiveness. If the marketing technique isn't getting the results you want, stop it and move onto another marketing technique. When you find marketing techniques which are producing good results, then try expanding the activity in order to maximise the return.

Competitor Analysis
Consistently watch what your competitors are doing, and in particular your successful competitors. See what is working for them in the current climate and take inspiration from this and apply it to your business.

Marketing Mentoring
If you need some help along the way, try our Marketing Mentoring service which costs only £10 for 30mins of our time and marketing expertise. It's a 'pay as you go' service which provides small businesses with affordable marketing support when they need it. The other alternative to this is using a marketing agency or consultant, which would command higher costs.

Small businesses should avoid falling into the trap of stopping all marketing activity in order to survive the recession, this could have the opposite effect. Instead, implement a low cost and low risk marketing strategy that keeps your business in touch with customers and could even see you take market share from your competitors who may have dropped their marketing altogether. If you implement a cost effective marketing strategy and find the best marketing blueprint for your business, not only will your business survive the recession but it could also take market share and grow stronger.

Written by Contrast Web Solutions Learn about Marketing Mentoring and other cost effective marketing solutions from Contrast Web Solutions.