Simplify Your Message - Marketing and Selling In A Recession

In a growing economy it is difficult enough to communicate your message through all the “noise” of competing messages and the ever growing number of communication channels. But at least people are more or less listening for messages that will help them grow their business in volume and profitability. During a broad recession such as the one we are now in marketing and advertising budgets have been cut, but the noise is still there albeit at a slightly lower volume. However, a new challenge presented by the recession is that management of companies in tough markets are stressed and more likely to be very tightly focused on their mission – even their survival which means they have less time and less inclination to listen. To penetrate the noise and settle on the consciousness of your highly focused prospects, your message must be crisp, concise, and simple.

SIMPLIFY
Take a cue from the consumer market and simplify your message as has Ricart Automotive of Columbus, Ohio. "You've got to simplify your message when times are tough and it has to be a value message," Rhett Ricart says¹. While it once had a variety of messages for buying, leasing and different product lines, Ricart Automotive now has a three-word concept: extremely low prices.

REPEAT IT OVER AND OVER
It doesn’t necessarily mean that overnight you magically have to become the price leader in your market. In fact, that can lead to certain disaster for technology leaders and customer-centric companies. But your message has to get the attention of people who aren’t in the listening mode which means they will filter it out unless it is aligned to their singular focus - executing their recession strategy. Find out what your customers recession strategy is and align your message to that strategy. A message of low price won’t get the attention of someone who doesn’t understand how your offering will help them survive. A message which tells them how your offering will help them advance their recession strategy has a better chance of getting through. Once you know what the essence of your message is, craft it. Make it concise and make sure it is simple. Then make sure everyone in your company is on message and repeating it over and over.

WHAT IF THEY JUST AREN’T BUYING?
Most likely your customers will buy fewer capital solutions then they have in the past. Those that want to invest may not be able to get the financing. Putting your marketing efforts into expanding the servicing of already installed solutions might be the right message to deliver at this time. Or taking advantage of consolidation in your customer’s industry by providing offerings that help them cope with disparate systems might be an opportunity. Finding the right message that will ring true with your customers at this troubled time has to be part of your own company’s recession strategy.

IT MUST BE A VALUE MESSAGE
Determining the optimum message to use during a recession is hard work. You must adapt your value proposition to the recession strategy of your customer. Depending on how homogeneous your market is will determine if one value message can be crafted to fit your entire customer base or if you need to segment your market and have a number of value propositions and accompanying messages. It is not easy, but it is important and may be one of the keys to surviving this recession which, at this writing, has no end in sight.

1. The Columbus Dispatch, December 14, 2008.

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