Graham Bailey - Marketing Blog

With so many businesses still in survival mode and the U.K. and European governments taking the axe to puiblic spending what should the marketer do in such difficult times. One of the wisest approaches is to get close and stay close to your best customers and listen to what they are telling you about their business and its prospects. It seems like Marketing lesson 1 but how often do we actually put it into practice. Some useful tips are:-

1. Check your feedback loops from customers.

2 Set up formal and informal talk sessions to enable you to listen to them.

3. Brief your whole organisation on the need to feedback all customer comments and criticisms.

4. Be proactive in getting out there amongst the customers - you’ll learn loads and they will see you responding to their needs.

5. Don’t cut things that will impact on your customers perception of your treatment of them.

You can do no worse than try some of these as they have been known to work and it will also make you feel more positive about your business.

The annual rush for university places has become even more interesting this year with a huge shortfall of places for both undergraduates and postgraduates. This poses an interesting problem for the teaching/learning world that if so many people are thirsting for knowledge then how will we meet this demand. So far the response has been noticeable by its absence but there will be organisations and individuals who see the opportunity and take it - where will you and I be in this?

With so much written in recent months about the credit crisis and the state of the world economy many businesses are focusing on the tough times and how to weather the storm - quite right you need to be responding to this. However the smart marketing planning is preparing yourself for the upturn so that as the green shoots appear you have a plan ready to implement and take advantage of the recovery.

I have recently been working with companies in the manufacturing, service industry and charity sectors and in each case our focus has been on preparing the plans to take advantage of the improvement in the business climate, if you would like to explore this for your company then get in touch now as if you leave it until the recovery is in full swing you will have already missed significant business opportunities.