The stock market in the U.S. has been on real wild ride since the credit crunch and the housing market collapses in various parts of the United States. It is still unclear when and how the stock market may stabilize, but it is certain that changes in our economy will be affecting our businesses. And Your Strategic Thinking Business Coach wants to alert you that unless your marketing helps you stand out from the competition, selling your services is going to get harder in the next few years. And that means you need to focus on developing a strategic marketing plan.

The need will still exist for your products and services but buyers are becoming more discerning. And there is a distinct opportunity to continue to grow your business, even in the economically challenged times. In fact it is really possible, if you can identify the real opportunities in these times, to significantly increase your sales in the next 12 months. But, it means you absolutely need to stand out from the competition by uniquely positioning your services.

It is important to remember that most small business marketing is ineffective and fails because it mistakenly gives prospects information they aren’t interested in and won’t respond to when requested to do so. On the contrary, you and your business will become highly valued and highly sought after when you use strategic marketing to position your business as the unique solution for your prospects. It is essential that you put your prospects’ interest first in your marketing and that will set you apart from the competition and become highly valued and sought after and retain and acquire more clients.

Your Strategic Thinking Business Coach has developed a list of strategic marketing tips that will help you retain and attract new clients in tough market conditions.

Our Tips

1. Develop a plan to specifically address and respond to the tough market conditions.
2. Always place the interest of your clients and your prospects first in each facet of your strategic marketing.
3. Always focus on your clients and prospects primary challenges, concerns, and issues.
4. Remember that you must educate your client and prospect first about your services and that you must also clearly define the benefits of your services that will be enjoyed by the clients and prospects.
5. Demonstrate your expertise and value of your services by listening, hearing and understanding their needs and responding with something they can use immediately.
6. Develop and implement a strategic referral program and offer incentives for referrals that turn potential prospects into clients.
7. Commit to building a long-term relationship with your clients and prospects so they know you and trust you. Experience has shown us that people decide whom to buy from based on the strength of relationships.
8. Give prospects a reason to buy from you today. Offer an added benefit or time-limited incentive to prompt a purchase.
9. Contact and reactivate former prospects and clients. Reach back and touch these people and find out what they are doing and what challenges, concerns and issues they may be facing in these challenging economic times. Then let them know how you can help them.
10. Develop and engage strategic alliances, strategic partners, and others by cross marketing and cross selling.

So how can we sum up all of the above tips into a single sentence of advice? That one sentence would be: Always put your clients’ and your prospects’ interests first!