5 business owner’s recession marketing genius
I’ve been questioning some local small business owners and hearing how they are changing their products and communication methods, to retain existing customers and gain new ones, in this upside down economy. Hopefully, there will be some inspiration in here for you.
Recruitment consultant, and temporary staff
“Companies are not taking on new permanent staff. So we are focusing much more on promoting the flexibility of temporary staff”, says Chris Boskall of a local recruitment agency. “We’ve also taken the measure of guaranteeing our staff, if our staff don’t turn up, we offer compensation to the company. This is a great way of enabling companies to take on staff with minimum risk”
“We’ve been expanding the number of pages in our eshop. Now for each product in our eshop, we have a set of frequently asked questions, this increases the page we have indexed in Google, and the likelihood of our ranking increasing.”, says Tim Taylor, manger of an office communications system eshop. “The second thing we’ve done is started to create a set of product review videos which we’ve put on youtube, as google is increasingly adding video results to its search”
Cornershop, and door drop
“We’ve seen less contractors come in for their morning pasties as building work slows, locals not buying as much bread/milk/newspapers, and even kids not coming in after school for sweets. The recessions is hitting us from all angles”, says Anthony Paul, owner of small cornershop in Swansea.
“We’re only now awaking up to how we can get more customers in. We have some great prices on wine and beer, so we’re starting a local newsletter for the neighbouring street, and we’re adding community news, photos of our friendly staff, and information on our offers”, Continues Anthony, “and doing a fortnightly ‘neighbourhood news’ leaflet drop to our surrounding streets. We are optimistic we can survive”.
Property Solicitors, and open door surgeries
“It was clear to us that property conveyancing would be hit, so we’ve been diversifying our services to include wills and probate, and commercial property - which we’ve found is still going strong compared to residential”, says Karen Smith director of a Cardiff solicitors. “We’ve started a Google Adwords campaign, and a started a series of ‘open door surgeries’ in surrounding communities where people can drop in and discuss their legal issues. We’ve had some great press of this, and are expanding the number of surgeries we offer.”
PR Company, and e-newsletters
“Having a client list that we keep close contact with, we are in-tune with their sentiments, and try and react to their needs. That said, the recession really has hit the PR industry. Advertising and marketing are the first areas to be cut, where inversely these areas are critical to a companies survival”, says Tom Hall manager of 4 person PR agency.
Tom continues, “Our strategy has to been to reiterate our benefits, namely consistent measurable exposure for businesses, and now push our ongoing marketing tools such as management of company’s e-newsletter and their website content with search engines in mind”
