Economic Lemons

Well, there's little doubt that times are a bit tough. Don't despair though! This is the perfect time to retool your business and take advantage of what's going on. If you had a lot of extra money, you could get some real estate and stocks at a good deal now, right? Well, the same is true for your business if you can just brainstorm and think of a way to do it.

We've talked with a number of clients that are cutting back on Yellow Page advertising and doing more online. One business had a salesperson leave and they're planning on making their website be that missing salesperson instead. Good choice!

Here are some interesting articles I found, which are some good reading. I've posted a few excepts as well:

6 Reasons You Should Invest in Internet Marketing During the Recession

Be Where People are Looking. Inbound vs. Outbound. The internet is primarily an "inbound" marketing channel where you "pull" prospects to you, by being where they are looking for your solution. The internet can deliver sales ready leads. If they are looking for your solution, your sales cycle will naturally be shorter.

Spend Time. Not Money. Almost all internet marketing strategies require more of your time and less of your money compared to traditional marketing and advertising solutions.

Our Strategy for a Recession? Inbound Marketing. What's Yours?

For marketers, the most chilling piece of the Sequoia presentation is a slide on the advertising market. They show the total U.S. market beginning to shrink and growth of online advertising beginning to slow.

Looking at this slide, you might think companies are beginning cut costs and scale back marketing.

Don't get sucked into that trap.

Creating More, Better Content -- The economy isn't going to slow down our content production -- it's just going to force us to get more rigorous about assessing the content we create.

Increasing our Focus on Search Engine Optimization -- Google is still the #1 place to be found by potential customers, and in a tight economy organic search results are by far the most efficient way of reaching Google users.

Notice that none of these strategies cost us anything more than time. In fact, to the extent they're replacing paid outbound marketing campaigns, they're saving us a lot of money.

We see the current economic instability as an inflection point -- one where the weak companies will slowly starve themselves, and the successful companies will reassess their operations and make them more efficient then ever.

So if you can adjust to this turn in the economy, you'll be cutting back, you'll be more efficient and when you get through this, you'll be more profitable as well. Turn lemons into lemonade!

-Tony

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