Well, it is too late to invest in marketing to position your company relatively inexpensively during a time when media were practically giving away advertising and your competitors were deathly quiet.

But, it’s not too late to be earlier than most to jump back onto the bandwagon and catch some of the competition still sleeping. If you’re familiar with a distribution bell curve, early movers have been investing already, but the majority of companies always wait a bit before restoring their marketing efforts to full luster. That gives you a brief window of opportunity to take a lead over your competition and establish higher awareness before the noise in the marketplace reaches a din.

It’s too late to invest in new products or services that you can launch when the market rebounds. Ahem, the market is rebounding. Those companies that have new products and services ready now have the competitive advantage. Need an example? In early October, Intel announced a tremendous quarterly growth in sales, reporting a 79 percent increase in earnings over the previous quarter and a whopping 150 percent increase over the same quarter of the previous year. Intel’s CEO pronounced, "Our resolve to invest aggressively during the downturn is paying off.”

Did you get that?

"Our resolve to invest aggressively during the downturn is paying off.”

It bears repeating because conventional wisdom decries investing during downturns, most notably with marketing, yet history has taught us that in every downturn since the great depression those companies that kept marketing aggressively came out of slow times with greater market share increases than their competitors, and held on to the growth for at least three years after the upturn.

But, it’s not too late to work on new products and services that you can launch soon. Again, many companies will delay their product investments until well into the boom part of the cycle, leaving you with a brief opportunity to get in relatively early. Remember, your new products may be later than you hoped when you introduce them, but you’ll still need them. The old rule of half of your revenues stemming from products that didn’t exist five years ago still applies.

It’s also not too late to take your marketing to the next level. Here’s a twist on the old adage, “Content is king.” Most consumers are conditioned to ignore blatantly commercial messages. That means that the audience for your promotional marketing messages is diminished because you’re (gasp!) trying to sell something. In other words, your audience believes you’re trying to manipulate them to buy your product over someone else’s product or over some other use for their money. So, how can you improve the odds that someone will be reading (or listening or watching) when your message is in their face? Try embedding your marketing messaging in valuable, informational content. Your company is probably like most in that you know a lot about how you market uses your products or services. You probably also know a lot about the condition that causes your market to use your products or services - the problem you solve. An article sharing insights about that situation can be written to provide helpful information to your market. And, you can even give examples that subtly point to your products or services. Emphasis here is “subtly.” If you roar in with obvious self-serving language you’ll destroy your credibility.

What's your opinion? In the “where does it end” department, America West Airlines has introduced a new revenue source based on tray table advertising. That’s right, just when you thought it was safe to stare straight at the seat in front of you, now you’ll be forced to endure someone’s advertising messages. So, here you are safely buckled in for a five hour flight across the country and you're forced to stare at THE SAME AD for the entire flight. Let’s check your marketing sense - does tray table advertising sound like a good idea to you? Vote your choice at www.luminor.com/yes-no.

Now's the time to not lose all of the opportunities brought on by the slow economy. Use some imagination, think like a customer, and invest. The returns on investment will come to you in the economic upswing while many of your competitors are stuck in the same or worse condition as before the downturn.

And, while we’re on that subject, we can help. We think like your customers on your behalf. In most cases, we talk to numbers of your customers to formulate incisive, insightful thinking on their wants, needs, attitudes and perceptions. We'll help you come up with ideas to outsmart your competition and come out of the rest of the downturn smelling like roses instead of rose fertilizer.

For more information, call us in Seattle at 206.956.0300 or in Southern California at 949.589.2478, or send an e-mail to info@luminor.com.

Take care and market smart. With things getting better many of your competitors are going to wake up and start marketing hard again, but it is not too late for your company to win.

Request a free copy of our monthly newsletter, Smart Marketing 4 Tough Times, on our contact page.

  As in everything we do, we invite your comments. If you agree with this article, disagree, or have additional thoughts, please let us know via our online message form. Thanks!

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