Marketing in Tough Times
There are so many outside forces today that are out of your control. Try to forget them for the moment, and focus on what you can control. Take a deep breathe, for starters, and let your mind stop racing. A calm mind will help you focus. In times like these, it’s so important to keep in touch with clients and find new ways to fill your pipeline as well. If you can contribute information that helps clients and potential clients, they will listen. Why? Because everyone is under pressure, whether you call it downsizing or rightsizing, companies are running lean.
Marketing is basically a long-term strategy. Right now that is hard for many companies to deal with, and so they default to the lowest common strategy – they cut marketing. While this is understandable from an accounting point of view, companies need to protect their customer base and strengthen these relationships to remain the vendor of choice when the market inevitably turns around.
This means reach out to your customers and potential customers. Have frank conversations with them regarding their situation, and do what you can to be a resource. Bring ideas, or just listen. Help them find ways to minimize risk. Perhaps you can find a way to break a project or sale into small pieces, and devise an easy payment schedule to get started. Send newsletters, hold seminars and webinars to show clients and potential clients how your product can help them get control of the complexity in their work.
At the IT Exchange Group we help clients market smarter and more efficiently. We create and manage cost effective marketing plans and events. We’ll make sure your branding is both consistent and customer facing.
The IT Exchange Group provides strategic & tactical marketing, expert meeting planning, and IT & new media services worldwide. We have the knowledge and expertise to execute marketing plans to differentiate your product from the competition. We specialize in planning and executing high-level conferences, conventions, tradeshows, user groups, technology advisory meetings and incentive programs to help drive new business and greater product awareness, and also offer IT & new media services to give your product a higher profile and sleeker look.
Call us, we’re listening.
Founder and
president of IT Exchange Group, Dana Toland oversees conference programs and services, as well as operations. Under Dana's
leadership, IT Exchange Group has evolved into a premier strategic marketing and meeting planning company primarily serving
companies in the IT industry. She has over fourteen years of experience in event marketing and operations, and was previously
employed by Daratech, Inc. and Relocation Resources International.