Marketing tactics for a recession

If your bank manager told you that you had 30 days to turn your business around or you will be closed down, and you had £1,000 marketing spend to play with to get some quick business results, what would you do?

That was a question we banded around in the office this week and it was interesting, especially when we got in the mindset.

I tend to advocate permission based marketing techniques, which works fine and can create good strong customer relationships, but, it’s not quick. It took us a time to warm up but the answers that came were clear:

Pay per click - ultra-targeted with an offer of some sort attached.
E-Mail Marketing - not building a list, but buying a list and hitting it
Old fashioned cold-calling on the telephone

We started cold-calling about three months ago, mainly because we bought a cheap list for Hampshire (UK). After three months, we have added about 50 people to our marketing database, had two meetings and a proposal has been sent out. Still waiting for that first order, but cost per acquisition is quite low.

We also, this week, split the database up, refined to Basingstoke, and sent a cold email out, albeit targeted. We had a 0.51% conversion rate from selling a free seminar. Not great, but when you consider the cost of $8.97 to send and the original database cost £150, it has potential, especially as we get more from the database.

One penny that has dropped for me though is this. Why do we have to wait for a recession before we get into gear and try ‘whatever it takes’?

Times are getting tough. We actually have a good pipeline in at work, but that doesn’t mean we can ride the wave. As confident as I am about seeing through the tough time we will endure in the UK, I also realise that we won’t coast through it. So why not try things we’ve never tried before?

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