ADVERTISING PROMOTION
Recession Proofing Your Small Business
With the economy still under siege, many small businesses continue to struggle through the recession. Keeping your head above water and ensuring your business pulls through these difficult times isn’t easy, but survival needn’t require spending large amounts of money or hiring an expensive business advisor to guide you through these obstacles. There are many ways you can protect your venture, whether it’s through securing a good liability insurance policy, or giving your business model a makeover. Take a look at these top tips for recession proofing your small business.
Be good to your customers
It goes without saying that the customer comes first, but during tough times competition can get fierce, so it’s important to up your game and offer clients something they can't get elsewhere. This shouldn’t have to mean lowering your prices, but rather increasing your value and making your service indispensible. A great tactic for retaining customers is to provide a follow up to check they are satisfied, this way you can tailor your service to each customer and reassure that any issues won’t reoccur. After all, if you don’t look after your customers, someone else will.
Make your website work for you
You can add value to your business and increase online trade by ensuring your website is in good shape. Your website is your online shop window with the potential to open up a wealth of global retail opportunities so it makes poor business sense not to utilise this extremely useful tool. Conduct research around Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) to find out how the content on your site can increase traffic and revenue and consider hiring someone to keep this updated. Another important measure is to make the online experience simple for your customers by keeping the browsing and purchase processes as straightforward as possible.
Take control of your finances
Understanding your incomings and outgoings is always important, but never more so than during a recession. If cash gets tight, review strategies, implement new tactics, identify areas where costs can be cut or savings made, and encourage staff to think of spending company as though it were their own. This is also the prime time to negotiate better deals with your suppliers or research cheaper alternatives.
Don't cut back on marketing
If you need to start stripping back on certain areas of your business, marketing shouldn’t be one of them. Whilst you may not be able to afford a large advertising campaign, there are ways of marketing your business without breaking the bank, including countless low cost options available online. Social media marketing, creating a blog for your business, releasing press releases and newsletters, and sending email updates to subscribed customers to maintain brand awareness are all cost effective marketing options.
