Changes in Small Business Marketing in an Uncertain Economy

Are you like me? Do you miss the easier days when an entire “strategic” marketing budget hinged on the Ad campaign using stock photography of people shaking hands to depict “teamwork,” or the scantily clad couple, fondling each other in the elevator? Nothing says “buy my product” or “we have a better service” than the depiction of wild sexual encounters or cliché photos and taglines.

This type of mindless marketing was prevalent in all forms of business marketing during the “boom economy.” The fact that it was the equivalent of the “sleight of hand” trick, an attempt to get companies and consumers to never focus on the underlying fundamentals of the business, should not be viewed in a negative manner, it worked. Of course, until it didn’t.

Now, however, the world has changed and the collective mindset is demanding substance over style and proactive rather than reactive, businesses are following suit by demanding from their creative agencies: strategy, accountability and measurable results to their marketing and communications initiatives.

Great marketing firms are advising start-up and small companies and entrepreneurial professionals to move the paradigm away from the top down approach of communications and seek new ways to talk to and engage with consumers. Today, small businesses must craft messages in non-traditional and multi-medium platforms that enable a personal connect to the business or product, such as social media or personalized Web 2.0 initiatives, joining their audience’s conversation where their conversations are taking place.

Everything communicates and every business and product and employee has its own intrinsic attributes (brand elements) and should each be marketed differently. In addition, the marketing needs to be authentic, consistent and in-line to the core attributes and values being delivered. The tried and true of yesterday has become the tired and failed of today.

Great companies recognize their brand is now shared and owned equally, if not more so, by the consumer than the company. Small businesses need to be open to and embrace new forms of communication, such as YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, Wetpaint, and Google Connect, to reach intended audiences. By creating a number of unique pages for the business, consumers/target audiences can be invited to join the “group” or page and get updates, event invitations, view photos, and have an open forum to provide feedback and engage in “conversation” with owners.
If your target audience isn’t communicating with you, they are communicating with your competitors.

According to a recent Neilsen study, the total number of minutes spent on social networking sites in the United States has increased 83 percent from April 2008 to April 2009. Specifically, the total minutes spent on Facebook increased close to 700 percent year-over-year, growing from 1.7 billion minutes in April 2008 to 13.9 billion in April 2009, making it the number one social networking site when ranked by total minutes spent on the site per month. The newcomer to the social networking scene, Twitter, has seen rapid growth in popularity, with more than 2.1 billion “tweet” posted to date.

There is actually one silver lining from today’s weakened economy - the barrier of entry to gain market share has lowered and the opportunity for achievement has increased. Small and mid-sized businesses have an unparalleled opportunity to gain market share, competing with those large companies that have for years been dominating. Now, while the playing field of budgets has been leveled, companies that work with agencies that understand the intrinsic drivers that really move the market will see huge increases in their bottom-line.

Commercial effectiveness has become more than a goal — it’s an overarching strategy that companies must emphasize as they strive to link critically related functions like advertising, sales and marketing. To win in the marketplace and create a high ROI, companies need to take a consumer-centric viewpoint that begins in brand planning and extends through field force effectiveness.

Years ago in the movie “Crazy People,” Dudley Moore plays a stressed-out advertising copywriter who is committed to a sanitarium. While there, with the help of his fellow mental patients, he does his best "creative" work pushing out novel campaigns that tell the truth about the products they are selling. The approach is so different that the ads become hugely successful and other firms are forced to join in this “truth telling” campaign. Those businesses that simply cannot work in this new forum will be eliminated.

Consumers are not a cog in the wheel, they are the wheel. If you are not out in front of them during all times they will recognize the disingenuous nature of your brand and move on. Historically, consumers make brand changes during a period of unrest. With silence small businesses are communicating the end is near. In all mediums join the conversation that has started around you. With more than one billion internet users globally, your audience and consumers are waiting.

When the dust settles after the recession, small businesses that have stayed status quo will be passed by those that have capitalized on change.