Sales Tips to Beat the Recession

Richard Anderson
Business Development Director - REaD

How do we keep our heads during the current recession while everyone else is losing theirs? Personally, I am optimistic about the next twelve to eighteen months because, despite seeing a retraction in mailing volumes during Q4 of last year, marketing activity appears to again be on the up-swing. Post-Credit Crunch, however, multi-channel campaigns are much better targeted – more considered, if you will. The name of the 2009 game is core business: retaining customers and enhancing brand loyalty. Anyone harbouring grandiose plans for worldwide domination best have deep pockets or wait a few years, I’m afraid.

Selling to customers and companies in the current climate is difficult, certainly, but far from impossible. Whereas cost is the most important sales USP for some, I’d argue that it’s the perceived value that a trusted brand or supplier consistently provides that can carry companies through choppy financial waters. I mean, do we all suddenly start buying ‘own-brand’ baked beans and abandon the pub for home-brew just because of the recession?
No, we don’t. Well, at least not entirely.

By all means keep your cost-base as low as possible, but it’s not the key sales driver I’m seeing here in Marketing Land as people – both at home and at work - opt for the tried and tested and ditch what they don’t need.

Those of us in the data game have known for a long time that value and insight come from knowledge. Whether it’s your key accounts or most frequent customers, knowing what people want and when allows you to more efficiently plan your campaigns and thus avoid the costly mistakes associated with marketing to current or prospect clients with the wrong offer, wasting precious pounds on people who have moved house or, worse still, even died.

Now more than ever, ensuring that suppression files remain a big gun in your data management arsenal is incredibly important. When used appropriately, suppression can certainly help your database remain value-generating and ROI-optimised. But beware the ills of over-suppression. I know of some companies who have tried to do the right thing, only to be sold suppression services that have left them with match rates of upwards of 30 percent. Almost a third of their data is unmarketable? Highly unlikely, I suspect.

Go the extra mile with clients, is essentially my recession-busting sales advice. Because making your product, service or expertise an integral and valuable part of a client’s lifestyle or bottom line will certainly be good for yours.