Pull yourself out

Recently I had been lamenting of the sharp decline in business. One client even told me that they had the money; they just did not want to take the chance of being singled out as an irresponsible company for having a corporate meeting. It wasn’t even in Las Vegas; it was going to be in Phoenix, and, to top it off, during the summer. Now, if you have ever been to Phoenix in the summer, people are happy when it cools down to 98. Hotels are virtually empty and you can get room at a 5 star resort for less than $100/night. Wow, I thought with this being the case, I might as well close up shop and crawl into a hole and hide.
Well, while I am in hiding what do you think the smart people are doing. They are picking up the phone and dialing for dollars. This recession is the perfect opportunity to go after new clients. The playing field has been leveled in an interesting sort of way. When the big corporations scale back their marketing and promotion plans, it becomes easier for the smaller ones to come forward. Think about it. Promotion and marketing are all about supply and demand. With a big supply of ad inventory, TV, Cable, Radio, and Print are making deals. They need to keep their doors open and are cutting costs and overhead to be able to offer historic lows in advertising. S does that mean go out a start blasting away with a shotgun approach… Absolutely not! More than ever you have to focus on you target audience.
Ask yourself the right questions.
1. What is my product
2. Who uses my product
3. Why do they use my product
4. Who REALLY needs my product
5. Where do they get their information
a. Trade shows
b. Print dailies
c. Radio
d. Internet
e. TV
Once you have gone through these basic questions you can begin to focus on a comprehensive plan. Do your research. Find the right media outlets, create relationships with them and craft your plan and follow it. Remember you don’t know if a plan works if you don’t follow it to completion.

That’s it for today. More to follow.

All the best,