5 Marketers Share their #1 Strategy for Tough Times

We could say, "It's dog eat dog out there."

But we've been through thick and thin since we set up shop around the time of the last large-scale recession, in the '70s. The current climate underscores why we've focused for three decades on direct marketing: It's measurable. So we weren't surprised that when we asked experts in our circle to share their #1 piece of advice on marketing strategy that makes sense in this economy, the common thread was more like "Go dog, go."

1. "Don't hunker down. Listen up."

– George Eddy, direct marketing expert
President and Owner, Heinrich Marketing

Too many brands react to all the bad news by retreating to the status quo — not changing anything.

Instead, use a smart combination of research, testing and response analysis to understand how your customers' purchasing drivers have changed in this economic environment. Because they have. I am surprised at how slow many companies have been to adjust to this reality

But the new economy provides a tremendous opportunity to capitalize. View it as a chance to start really listening to what your customers' behavior is telling you.

Use what you learn from research and analytics to refine or rethink your offers, segmentation, creative, positioning or messaging. Revisit both acquisition campaigns and customer retention programs. Most likely you'll boost your response.

One large national retailer client of ours has completely redesigned product brochures and all marketing communication materials for a suite of financial services products. These products have been successful, but this company recognized that its customers' buying mindset has changed. They designed research to discover how it has changed, adjusted their strategies accordingly, submitted new designs into research and found that they resonate much better than the existing designs. In-store launch is scheduled for later this year.

2. "Mine the crystal ball that's in your customer data."

– Bill Schneider, customer data analysis expert
Owner, Intellistats, Inc.

One thing that's clearly changed is that consumers have become much more discriminating about their spending. Their new mantra is, "If it's not essential, it's inconsequential."

What hasn't changed is the availability of customer data. The transactional trails left by consumers are ripe to be reexamined. In this environment, marketers who've captured a history of transactions in a customer database have the upper hand. Yet just as consumer behavior has drastically changed, you need a new attitude toward harvesting customer data.

One methodology today's marketers are effectively using to do this is called market basket analysis. The goal is to uncover behaviors that are indicators of what the customer's next most likely action might be.

Being able to anticipate future customer behavior makes it far easier to motivate your customer to take a particular action. And it can be applied at the individual-customer level. It gives you a smarter way to allocate scarce marketing resources.

I have seen marketers apply the fundamentals of market basket analysis in several ways.

All of this can be tracked to determine what worked and what didn't work.

3. "Version your creative to cost-effectively target your message."

– Dave Nichols, Heinrich creative director

In an environment like this, the fundamentals of direct marketing are more important than ever. Don't just buy a list and blast your message out; the truth is you can't build relationships that way. First off, you have to have permission. But more to my point, if you want to entrench with existing customers or quality prospects, your message has to be more relevant than ever.

If you're marketing a home equity line or credit card to checking customers who have different transactional behavior and balance histories, version your copy to offer different credit lines and to resonate more meaningfully with each segments' lifestyle and priorities. You can even have image variance.

We're working with a client right now whose primary marketing expenditure over the last few years has been to buy a list and do a blanket email. Not a lot of attention or qualification there. This year we helped them narrow one list by 80 percent to target customers who fit into a more specific segment — and we personalized direct mail with very specific language and offers. More than 10 percent responded, and the printing/mailing cost difference was huge.

In tough times there's also a tendency to want to do things on the cheap. But this is no time to erode quality. You're better off reducing the scale of your marketing campaigns than the quality.

Whatever you do, don't do nothing. That's very dangerous because you can become out of sight, out of mind. So you absolutely can't stop. In fact, now is a great time to get aggressive because some of your competitors are running out of money and running scared. It's a great opportunity to leapfrog ahead if you have a strong belief in your value proposition.

4. "Boost ROI with emerging digital print technologies."

– Scott E. Dempster, print production expert
National Accounts Manager,
Heinrich approved partner vendor Advanced Image Direct

As pressure mounts to show ROI on your campaigns, digital printing is a tool you need to understand and leverage.

Maybe you still think of digital printing as low quality for low runs, but look again. It's advanced tremendously in the past few years. Yes, you can still see the difference; but digital quality will surprise you if you if you haven't looked at it recently. And the power it gives you to target more effectively while also cutting costs is a must in this economy.

Digital printing makes it more cost-effective to use a host of triggers to make your message more relevant for your customers.

For example, for banks and financial services providers, varying the message based on monetary thresholds is critical, and this technology allows them to do that affordably with very high levels of control, personalization and flexibility. If you're a credit card issuer, you can vary your messaging and offer by credit line, interest rate and transactional behavior — up to the last minute before printing. Results for each variant are highly quantifiable in reporting.

You can also crank up your turn time with specific digital printing processes like AID's Extreme Variable Digital Printing (XVDP). You can get highly targeted one-to-one marketing communications within 24 hours.

5. "Include organic SEO in your marketing mix."

– Ivy Hastings, interactive marketing strategist
Heinrich interactive marketing partner Fusionbox

There are customers who are still spending money during this recession — and there are still plenty of customers who need things. You need an integrated strategy including both "push" and "pull" tactics. The latter includes making sure you're there when they go looking for something. You want to be at the top of organic search engine results for your target keywords.

I was recently a guest speaker at a Business Marketing Association meeting, and I asked the audience, "Who's using Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn as a marketing tool? There were lots of raised hands. I asked, "Who's doing search engine optimization?" and one person raised a hand.

Search engine optimization can bring in good, qualified leads — they're looking for you. If those customers get to your site and you're doing a good job of speaking their language and making their experience great, they'll convert. It can't stand alone, but it's a vital ingredient in integrated direct marketing.

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