On the Harvard Business School Blog Professor John Quelch provides the following tips for Marketing during tough times (http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/5878.html):

1. Research the customer. Instead of cutting the market research budget, you need to know more than ever how consumers are redefining value and responding to the recession. Price elasticity curves are changing. Consumers take more time searching for durable goods and negotiate harder at the point of sale. They are more willing to postpone purchases, trade down, or buy less. Must-have features of yesterday are today’s can-live-withouts. Trusted brands are especially valued and they can still launch new products successfully, but interest in new brands and new categories fades. Conspicuous consumption becomes less prevalent.

2. Focus on family values. When economic hard times loom, we tend to retreat to our village. Look for cozy hearth-and-home family scenes in advertising to replace images of extreme sports, adventure, and rugged individualism. Zany humor and appeals on the basis of fear are out. Greeting card sales, telephone use, and discretionary spending on home furnishings and home entertainment will hold up well, as uncertainty prompts us to stay at home but also stay connected with family and friends.

3. Maintain marketing spending. This is not the time to cut advertising. It is well documented that brands that increase advertising during a recession, when competitors are cutting back, can improve market share and return on investment at lower cost than during good economic times. Uncertain consumers need the reassurance of known brands, and more consumers at home watching television can deliver higher than expected audiences at lower cost-per-thousand impressions. Brands with deep pockets may be able to negotiate favorable advertising rates and lock them in for several years. If you have to cut marketing spending, try to maintain the frequency of advertisements by shifting from 30-second to 15-second advertisements, substituting radio for television advertising, or increasing the use of direct marketing, which gives more immediate sales impact.

4. Adjust product portfolios. Marketers must reforecast demand for each item in their product lines as consumers trade down to models that stress good value, such as cars with fewer options. Tough times favor multi-purpose goods over specialized products, and weaker items in product lines should be pruned. In grocery-products categories, good-quality own-brands gain at the expense of national brands. Industrial customers prefer to see products and services unbundled and priced separately. Gimmicks are out; reliability, durability, safety, and performance are in. New products, especially those that address the new consumer reality and thereby put pressure on competitors, should still be introduced, but advertising should stress superior price performance, not corporate image.

5. Support distributors. In uncertain times, no one wants to tie up working capital in excess inventories. Early-buy allowances, extended financing, and generous return policies motivate distributors to stock your full product line. This is particularly true with unproven new products. Be careful about expanding distribution to lower-priced channels; doing so can jeopardize existing relationships and your brand image. However, now may be the time to drop your weaker distributors and upgrade your sales force by recruiting those sacked by other companies.

6. Adjust pricing tactics. Customers will be shopping around for the best deals. You do not necessarily have to cut list prices, but you may need to offer more temporary price promotions, reduce thresholds for quantity discounts, extend credit to long-standing customers, and price smaller pack sizes more aggressively. In tough times, price cuts attract more consumer support than promotions such as sweepstakes and mail-in offers.

7. Stress market share. In all but a few technology categories where growth prospects are strong, companies are in a battle for market share and, in some cases, survival. Knowing your cost structure can ensure that any cuts or consolidation initiatives will save the most money with minimum customer impact. Companies such as Wal-Mart and Southwest Airlines, with strong positions and the most productive cost structures in their industries, can expect to gain market share. Other companies with healthy balance sheets can do so by acquiring weak competitors.

8. Emphasize core values. Although most companies are making employees redundant, chief executives can cement the loyalty of those who remain by assuring employees that the company has survived difficult times before, maintaining quality rather than cutting corners, and servicing existing customers rather than trying to be all things to all people. CEOs must spend more time with customers and employees. Economic recession can elevate the importance of the finance director’s balance sheet over the marketing manager’s income statement. Managing working capital can easily dominate managing customer relationships. CEOs must counter this. Successful companies do not abandon their marketing strategies in a recession; they adapt them.

We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again: all the beautiful, brand-centric communications in the world don’t make a dime of difference if there’s a disconnect at the point of sale or service. For example:

1) The stylist at the salon can’t stop gabbing on her cell phone long enough to give a haircut 100% attention.

2) The cashier at the gas station carrying on a conversation with a co-worker and eating a donut while ’serving’ customers.

3) The annoyed-sounding lady who answers the phone at a gift shop and sighs when she has to take a message.

4) The sales rep who only returns calls if there is a sale to be made.

5) The staff members standing outside a corporate building smoking.

6) The employee who trashes her boss and the institution she works for on a daily basis on Facebook.

We’re sure you can think of a few more to add to the list! The only way to guarantee good brand-building behavior by employees (and other representatives of your business) 99.9% of the time is to create the policies that will support it. And don’t forget to train staff regarding these policies, and then enforce them.

As we all know by now, the fact that most Disneyland experiences are nearly flawless from a service and presentation standpoint isn’t an accident. There are rules, processes, and checks in place to ensure that the magic remains.

The point here is simple: Don’t spend time building your business with marketing, product-development and strategic planning, only to have it knocked down in your customers’ eyes by the behavior of employees, who, for the most part, don’t have a vested interest in your success.

Be specific about how you want the phone answered, what the expectations for upholding the reputation of your business are, and provide descriptions of what is appropriate work-time behavior and what is not. Put all of this in writing. Have staff members sign and keep a copy of these guidelines.

Creating behavior standards might take a little time, however, when deviation from the desired behavior occurs, everyone will have a common reference point from which to do better next time. Which is key to continuing to grow your business.

So you want to sell more of what you’ve got to offer–that’s kind of the point of being in business, isn’t it? Then you don’t want to chintz out on efforts to build trust with your key prospects and stakeholders.

As our founder, Mr. Ray Hamblin, has always said, “We need to earn the trust and confidence of our customers in order to fulfill their highest expectations.” Of course, as usual, he’s right.

Trust and confidence generally go hand-in-hand. As clients and prospects have more exposure to what your company is made of and positive service/product experiences provided by you and your employees, their confidence in your abilities to do the job they need done increases, and gradually you become a trusted partner. Seems simple, doesn’t it? But earning trust starts before you ever have direct contact with a prospect or before a customer selects your product from the shelf. It begins with your brand and what it stands for and then, once that’s defined, all the ways you, your staff and any third-party partners touch your target audiences with the brand message and experience.

Trust isn’t usually won easily or quickly, but if you earn it over time, no matter what business you’re in, it will pay dividends. In our next post we’ll discuss some classic and new tactics for winning trust and confidence that won’t break the bank.

The Concept:

2009 marks The Hamblin Company’s 35^th anniversary. 2009 is also a year of serious economic concern. With this in mind, we have created the Hamblin Brand Aid Project to show appreciation and support of the organizations within our local business communities. Through this project, The Hamblin Company will offer up to $35,000 in marketing-communications products and services to help fund the communications needs of one commercial business and one non-profit organization.

 The Nomination Process:

Starting April 1, 2009, The Hamblin Company will accept Brand Aid nominations from local non-profit and for-profit businesses for support of their communications goals via the hamblincompany.com website. Organizations may self-nominate or be nominated by a third party (i.e. a Board of Directors or a volunteer). Any organization that is nominated must be a legal entity or a registered 501(c)3 not-for-profit business. Nominations will be accepted through May 31, 2009.

 Nomination Criteria:

To be eligible for nomination and consideration the following criteria must be met:

• The nominee must be a legal entity or a registered 501(c)3 not-for-profit business operating in southeastern Michigan or Northwestern Ohio.
• One specific marketing or communications project must be identified for Brand Aid funding. The project may have multiple components.

Selection of Brand Aid Recipients:

A panel of business/communications professionals and Hamblin employees will review the Brand Aid nominations and select two recipients using the following criteria:

1)     Demonstration of monetary and/or professional need.

2)     The impact the project would have in the community or organization.

3)     The scope of the project-would it be accomplished within the monetary limits of the Brand Aid Fund?

4)     The stated vision/goals/objectives of the project.

5)     Why the nominator feels the nominee is deserving of the Brand Aid

Visit www.hamblincompany.com April 1^st to apply!

In some respects, we’re all looking for people to invest in us either professionally or personally. As an individual, we hope that people we like (or are related to )will spend some of their time with us. We might even be lucky enough to have those close to us invest monetarily in our futures or in our everyday lives. The same is true professionally. Essentially, we want people (i.e. our customers) to spend some of their scarce resources (time and money) on us-to listen to what we have to say and invest in what it is we have to offer.

Now more than ever, both time and money are at a premium for most of us, which means we’re cautious investors at best. Why then do so many organizations fail to appropriately woo prospects and customers ? Instead of trying to connect authentically, companies hide behind websites where content is severely dated and contact information is buried or nonexistent; they strip people at the point of actual potential investor contact of dignity and empowerment; they take short-term profit over long-term stability; and then they wonder why ‘marketing’ doesn’t work. The truth is, marketing only works when it’s part of a larger system of interactions that build positively on an organization’s reputation and character.  Marketing only works when management is engaged in the process of providing true value to its investors and not using it as a means to a short-sighted, self-serving end.

If you’re looking for more investors and/or higher returns for your own business, perhaps you should review your own investments and your investor relations strategy.

We have a prediction: the need for hand-holding is going to increase again this year. We’re talking about the need to guide your customers ‘along the way’ during the sales and post-sales processes. Answering questions, confirming that your business is the right supplier of what they are looking for, quelling the little concerns that crop up–everyone wants a little extra reassurance.

This is not surprising given the uncertain market conditions. Many of us may be feeling a little uneasy about making major–and even minor–purchases. Combine this with the need to stretch budgets as far as they can go, and selling what you’ve got becomes more challenging than ever. 

If you’re looking to grow your business online, you might be wondering how can you hone your ‘hand-holding’ technique to support your sales and repeat sales success when you have little or no one-to-one contact with your customers.  In addition to excellent communication skills, patience, and practice, try the following tips from Derek Gehl, Entrepreneur.com’s”E-Business” columnist: http://money.aol.com/news/articles/_a/bbdp/how-to-reduce-purchase-anxiety/37507

Many of the ideas Gehl mentions can be adapted for the ‘traditional’ sales sphere, and chances are if you spend some time preparing yourself to grab your potential customer’s hand and lead them to the checkout, your palms won’t sweat a bit.

We heard an interesting comment from a commercial lender who works at one of our local banks recently. He said, “I am definitely cheering for my customers. No matter what people think, banks want their customers to succeed. If they don’t the bank doesn’t get repaid.” Now, that’s common sense when you think about it, but how many banks give the average deposit customer or small-business loan recipient the feeling that they’re rooting for them? Maybe their marketing departments think they are doing a good job of making the relationship between financial institution and customer feel like it is mutually beneficial, but beyod the advertising facade, many banks can’t manage to make the process of anything beyond a routine transaction very pleasant.  If you know of one that does–please let us know!

The point of all of this is not to bash the banks, it is to illuminate a low-cost, often forgotten method for gaining loyal customers and productive workers: by providing support that will help them get to the next level. Think about it–do you make it easy for your customers succeed by providing a needed product or service? Tell them about it! Could you help your employees learn how to do their jobs more effectively? Why not share that information with them?

For the most part, cheering on your colleagues and customers is a lot more fun and profitable than choosing to focus on the negative or taking a non-commital approach to customer service and employee retention.

How did you meet some of your best customers? Was it the result of a face to face encounter, a cold call, a referral, an ad that you ran, a website inquiry or maybe a tradeshow seminar?

Chances are, even after you met these now loyal individuals, they didn’t immediately buy armloads of your products or thousands of dollars of your services. Most of the time, customer-vendor relationships are no different than our personal ones. The majority of lasting, long-term unions aren’t built in a week, a month, or even a year. It takes many years of consistent communication, successful sales and service experiences, and nurturing to make any relationship work for all of the parties involved.

It’s important to remember this when you think about the effectiveness of your communication vehicles. For example, if your product is complex, built for a particular niche, and/or has a long sales cycle, please don’t get discouraged when you run ads and the phone isn’t ringing of the hook immediately. It takes time and more than a one-dimensional advertising and promotional strategy to get to ‘first base’ with your prospects. You will need to devote time to learning, listening, and showing your potential customers that ‘you’re the one’ that can satisfy their need for whatever it is that you offer.

Think about your own behavior when it comes to seeking out new products and suppliers. Do you jump at the first item or organization you come into contact with? Or do you ‘look around’ even after you’ve found a satisfactory solution? Do you buy just because you’ve seen one ad? Sometimes yes, but most of the time that’s not the way we make decisions–especially when our hard-earned dollars or career performance are on the line based on the choices that we make.

Unfortunately, or fortunately-depending on how you look at it-winning new customers and retaining the loyalty of your existing ones comes back to the basic principles of nurturing any mutually beneficial relationship: consistent, relevant communication; respect for what each party brings to the table; and doing the little things that show you value and appreciate the opportunities that you are given.

You get to your local barber to find a note on the door that says, “Back in 10 mins”–you come back half an hour later to find the same sign. You spend five minutes (an eternity in web-time) setting up an account to purchase something online, only to have the checkout time-out for no apparent reason. You’re unhappy with your financial institution, but the pain of having to change all of your automatic payments and EFTs (electronic fund transfers) is too great–so you feel like you have to stay, bitterness ensues. 

We’ve all been there as consumers–in purchase or service situations that seem more difficult than they have to be. Sometimes it feels as if the very companies who spend large amounts of money wooing us with marketing, turn their backs on us when we actually try to use their products or service, or hang us out to dry if their should ever be a problem we need rectified. Perhaps just thinking about all the times you’ve encountered poor service or had your hopes and expectations of customer satisfaction dashed makes you feel angry, frustrated, and discontented. Hey–you don’t have to take it! As the consumer you have the power to spend your hard-earned dollars where you want. And we’ll bet that in these tougher economic times, that’s exactly what you’ll do.

If any of this resonates with you, then it also resonates with your customers. Maybe today you could look at your business through the eyes of your customers. Is it easy to buy from you, to get after-sale service, to be respected? If not, you know what to do!