Recession Busting Tips Summary

So just in case you missed any of the 10 recession busting tips published in December and January, a quick reminder summary of the 10 tips:

1. Count Every Penny

2. Show Me The Money

3. Check & Double Check

4. Negotiating

5. Financial Status

6. Your Staff

7. Be Visible

8. Promote

9. Remember Your Regulars

10. Stay Focussed

So did you find these useful, have you gone through some or all of the tips yet?

I would love to hear what you think or what you have acted on; it would be great to expand these 10 tips in the future with your new tips. I look forward to reading your comments and stories.....

Recession Busting Tips No6 - Your Staff

Use the thoughts and experiences of one of your biggest assets, your staff. Remember they want your business to succeed as much as you do, particularly during a recession.

Ask you staff what they think, what ideas they have, ask for their input. This will make them feel more valued and part of the team and you may be pleasantly surprised about the ideas they come up with.

One or more of them may produce a great idea which may be very successful and make all the difference, if so remember to reward the person. Show your appreciation, get them involved and other great ideas will come in the future.

Recession Busting Tips No3 - Check & Double Check

In a recession it is essential that you get credit checks on all your customers. It is good practice at any time, but it is even more important in a recession.

If you have not been doing this, it is never too late to start and if you have customers who do repeat business with you, get them checked out as well because things can change in their businesses too.

Also get a credit check on your suppliers, you do not want to spend time and money promoting a product that could disappear or have an intermittent supply line.

Try to take as many of the risks of doing business away, to make your position as strong a possible.

Who is your prospect in your target market?

Having taken into account the 7 key areas, which I discussed in more depth the previous blogs, listed here as a quick reminder:

1. Worries
2. Age
3. Gender
4. Education
5. Relationship/marital Status
6. Income
7. Location

Now it is time to construct a specific profile for your target market and make it really personal, this will then provide you with a picture in your mind, you will now be talking to one specific person and we all know its much easier to talk to just one person, than stand up in front of an audience of thousands.

Your reader will also feel like you are really just talking to them, and them alone, you know their circumstances, you can empathise with them, you are on their wave length, speaking their language, understanding their needs and wants.

Now imagine how well you message will be received, you are appealing to their emotions, they want what you have to offer.

So, bearing all this in mind get started with generating your person, give them: a name, age, gender, marital status, occupation, home, location, children, pets, hobbies etc

Some examples might be:

John is a 22 year old single, care free, no responsibilities, university student, who lives in a shared flat with two other guys. He lives a short distance from university and uses his bike to get to and from lectures. He is into facebook, twitter and the internet and only opens his post if it’s vital and important, conducts his life online and on the phone. Is into sports and fitness, goes to the gym, plays football and cycles. Plans to go around the world when he qualifies in 4 years time before starting work as an accountant.

Sally is a 35 year old married working mum with two children, a 5 year old boy David and an 8 year old girl Jane. She and her husband Paul have their own business in landscape gardening, Paul does all the gardening and Sally runs the office, so she can be around for the kids. They live in a small house in town, run two cars and go abroad once a year in the school summer holidays. They have a cat, a dog and two rabbits. All the family use computers and the internet regularly for work, pleasure and school work, Sally books the summer holiday online every year.

You can expand your prospect profiles with as much detail as you feel is suitable to enable you to picture this person in your mind’s eye; I hope you find the two examples useful and a good starting point to get your thoughts flowing.

You can quickly see from the two examples above how different your messages would need to be to make them interesting and attractive to either John or Sally and her family. You can also see how sending a message that suits John would be a complete waste of time and energy if it was sent to Sally, more importantly Sally may be turned off from one of your products or services in the future because she has already received something from you that is of no interest to her. However had you sent out the correct profile message you could have kept her interested for something in the future.

7 Things you need to know about your prospects in your target market – Part 7

Their location, where do they live, in a flat or house, in the town or country.

This is not the same as income related i.e. big house in the country, again this is about what they will need and want, a lawnmower is no good if you are living in a flat.

You also need to be aware of both cultural and regional differences, whether you plan to sell across the world or just across the UK ( or your own country) you will still have differences you need to be aware of, possibly even offering different language options.

Values can change widely from north to south and east to west, so be aware of this and target your message accordingly.

These 7 key areas to consider when writing your target message to your prospects will ensure you come away with a much more specific message targeted to and written for YOUR audience at that time.

Also, an added benefit, having done it once, for one , you will find it easy and quick to target the same offer with a new focused message to a different audience when applicable.

In the next blog (part 7 bonus) I will write more about your specific target market profile and how to develop one for all you marketing messages across the web, email, sales letter whatever you use to talk to your prospects.

7 Things you need to know about your prospects in your target market – Part 4

Their level of education, this is similar in some respects to the age related question, once again we need to speak in language the recipient will readily understand.

It is not a case of treating everyone like idiots or conversely like brain boxes, but being appropriate in what we say and how we say it, to ensure the right message is received and understood by the right audience - your target customer.

……….to be continued

7 Things you need to know about your prospects in your target market - Part 2

2. Their age, this may seem unusual, but think about it, everything we say or write is targeted to our recipient, after all we may have the same conversation with our grandmother and our children, but we definitely do not use the same language.

The words we use are all different, the styles, the type of expressions, even perhaps slang or text speak.

……….to be continued