Recession or not, marketing is a must. There is no going back  and the only people who can hurt during times like these are those who don’t take to this seemingly common, but rarely practiced, advice seriously. Traditional marketing methods pop up as solution. Recession calls for warrior hearts and creative heads. Guerrilla marketing is the name of the game and given below are 5 great ways to do just that:

1.Do it the caveman way : Don’t ever forget that even before currency was introduced, business was on. Barter trade or the bartering system was the way to go those days – like a cow for 100 bales of cotton; a cart of sugar for a cart of grapes? There is no reason why you shouldn’t use a variation of the bartering system for marketing. A simple arrangement for mutual promotion of products or services will do. For instance, if you sell “mobile Internet cards”, you could think of a mutual arrangement with Starbucks or even your friendly Pete’s coffee house. You could give out discount coupons for the coffee house and the coffee house could promote your mobile internet device. You get the idea, don’t you?

2.Hit the streets: Most entrepreneurs find it very difficult to hit the roads and sell their products and services. For those who did make it the hard way and got around too build their companies, they just can’t bring themselves to do it all over again. But why not? The best thing to do in times that suck the bottom-line of your company into oblivion is to sell even more. Ramp up the sales volume and put everything to do with sales on a high gear. Just go out there and do it. Action, solves half of your problem.

3.Use Technology to cut costs: Deploying technology for cutting costs can plummet your expenses. Using energy efficient equipment; virtual meetings using the Internet can replace the conventional meetings that consume time, burn energy, cost money and ruin the environment; going paperless in your office can help reduce costs. Use Internet banking and online payments instead of traveling to the actual physical destinations and finally, you could even think of using blade servers, virtualization, thin client computing and cloud computing.

4.Give a reason for them to bit your bait: Consumers don’t want to do business with you if every other competitor can provide the same. They would come to you because you have something or can do something, none of your competitors can. A Unique Selling Proposition(USP) can help. A USP is a set of reasons why your business is so special. Make your USP loud and clear and meet the promises you make consistently enough and see how recession-proof your business can become.

5.Control your cash: Most businesses suffer the no-cash syndrome. Cash flow is crucial and you should do everything in your power to ensure that it is in control. Stop giving out goods and services on credit and if you have no choice, have strong systems in place to retrieve your receivables; if you can, design your payment systems such that you get payment up-front. Perhaps 50% advance will do too. Credit is best avoided.

Tweet This Post  Buzz This Post  Digg This Post  Reddit This Post  Stumble This Post