Guest Author - Richard G. Melecki
In virtually every industry today, businesses have to do more with less. This includes all of the marketing activities necessary to get new business in a challenging economy.
In past recessions, marketers have concentrated their efforts on market segments, geographies, and customers which have proven profitable in the past. But the current world economic situation is changing virtually every market. Just doing what worked in the past to acquire new business risks wasting scarce marketing dollars and increasing your cost of new business acquisition.
To reduce your marketing costs and to increase your return on dollars spent to get new business, follow these steps:
-
Examine every current geographic market, market segment, and customer to determine if they are in fact viable prospects in the current economy. Ask yourself how your products and services might sell in markets and in geographies you have not previously served.
-
Concentrate on no more than one to three profitable markets or market segments at any given time. Like an army on the attack, your business must achieve strategic focus in order to maximize the use of scarce resources.
-
Fine tune your product/service design and your pricing strategy for each market in which you do business.
-
Make sure you have identified the real buyers in each market segment. Buyers are individuals who have the authority to make purchase decisions and who own the budgets used to make the purchase. Concentrate your marketing and sales efforts on reaching these individuals.
-
Profile each buyer type for every one of your products. At a minimum you should know their titles, their professional background, how they find out about products and services like yours, and how they make purchase decisions.
-
Use communication channels that have the best chance of reaching buyers for the least cost. Active business acquisition methods, such as business-to-business referrals, direct mail/e-mail, and cold calling usually are the most cost effective. Other less direct methods, including Internet and print advertising, can also prove effective if selected carefully to reach your targeted buyer
For more information, feel free to contact:
MPI Achieve, Ltd.
330-622-4038
info@mpiachieve.com
http://www.MPIAchieve.com
Comments