The troubles in the housing market have been affecting not just home builders, but companies across a wide variety of industries. While it’s obvious that most home builders, real estate companies, title agencies and appraisers have been hit pretty hard, what may not be obvious is that many companies have seen increases in their business. When less people are buying new homes, more people are improving their existing homes and as a result, furniture stores, art galleries and interior design firms (to name a few industries) often see a sizable boom in business.

Which side of the situation is your company on? Are you enjoying an increase in business or is your company struggling to make ends meet? If the latter, what are you doing about it? Rather than wait for things to change, be proactive and find (or create) a way to benefit from the housing market. If you run a real estate firm, consider creating a property management division to manage rental properties for your clients. If you run a home building company, consider creating a home remodeling division. Your options are limitless; you just need to find a service that compliments your core business and is not adversely affected by the housing market.

Not too long ago, blogging was the hottest thing on the Internet. Lately social networking has been the one getting all of the attention, but can you use it to help grow your business? In many cases, you can but not in the same way that you utilize other marketing channels because it just doesn’t work the same way. Simply creating a profile, adding contacts and sending them promotional messages is not going to generate many sales if any. More often than not, you will alienate your contacts. On the other hand, social networking can make an impact when you utilize it to reach specific people on an individual basis through mutual contacts, and when you utilize it as a networking tool. If you use it to develop and nurture relationships rather than simply using it as another form of mass communication, you can earn trust, and subsequently, results.

Ready to get started? For most business owners, LinkedIn is probably going to be the most effective, and there are several others, such as Plaxo, Go Big Network and Ryze.

Building a brand can often mean the difference between the success or failure of a business. Many business owners do a pretty good job when it comes to building their brand through traditional channels because they hire a professional graphic designer or marketing company to develop an effective corporate identity and ensure that all of their printed materials, signage and advertising utilize it in a consistent manner. On the other hand, most business owners are not nearly as effective when it comes to building their brand online because it is a completely different environment than they’re familiar with.

Company name/domain name

If you are still in the process of starting your company, you’ve got a bit of an advantage. Because you’re not tied to an existing company name, you can develop one while you search for a short and memorable domain name. Short and memorable is always better than having keyword phrases in your domain, but if you can have both, by all means do so, but avoid keyword stuffed or hyphenated domains. You should do everything in your power to purchase both the .com and the .net version of the domain you want. While you’re at it, go ahead and register your domain for at least five years, preferably ten years. It will cost a bit more but doing so can help to improve your organic search ranking because the length of time a domain is registered for is one of the many factors in Google’s algorithm.

Organic search optimization

Include your company’s name and tag line in the title tag and header tags on an about us page, which should be a separate page from your home page. Additionally, the file name should be the same as your company name.

  Example: http://www.yourdomain.com/your-company-name.htm

This ensures that your website appears in the organic search results without diluting the effectiveness of the search engine optimization of your home page.

PPC (Pay-Per-Click)

Utilize Google and Yahoo’s PPC (Pay-Per-Click) programs with your company’s name as the keyword phrase. Chances are that your own website will show up in the organic ranking as well, but every impression counts. Plus, you won’t need to invest very much on this because unless you generate tremendous attention few people will actually search for your company name, and most of those that do will click on your organic listing anyway.

Display advertising

Utilize display advertising, such as banners or rich media ads (Flash, Quicktime, etc.) on targeted websites. You can search for appropriate websites through a company like Federated Media, which connects advertisers with publishers. Display advertising gives you the opportunity to put your company name, logo and message in front of a large number of people relatively quickly with a modest investment. The click-through rate of display advertising is generally low, often below one percent, but the key here is the visibility. Each and every impression you get to make with potential consumers adds up.

Blogging

Blog on a regular basis to create dialogue with your visitors and encourage them to return. The more often visitors return to your site, the more impressions you’ll be able to make with them giving you a greater chance to convert them into clients. You can even use free open-source software such as Wordpress, which is extremely powerful and highly customizable. Installing your own blog is far more effective than simply setting up a free account like those offered by Wordpress, BlogSpot or any number of other blog hosting services because it allows you to continually add fresh content to your own website which is something the search engines love!

As the economy continues to get worse, it’s more important than ever to stand out from your competitors if you want to survive the current challenges that most business owners are facing as well as the many more that are sure to follow. The knee-jerk reaction during tough times is to reduce costs in any way possible, which usually includes reducing or eliminating marketing budgets. Unfortunately this only increases the problem by reducing or eliminating any chances of producing new revenue. Think about it like a camp fire - if you stop adding wood to the fire, it is going to produce less heat. If you want to be warmer but plan to wait until your fire starts producing more heat before adding more wood, you’re going to have a long, cold wait ahead of you.

First and foremost, you will need to continue your marketing efforts and if at all possible, increase them. When the economy slows down and your competitors cut back on their marketing, it’s your opportunity to increase your market share by earning the clients they are losing. Your profit margin may be temporarily reduced during this period but your client base will increase. When the economy picks back up, your profit margin will return to normal levels if not higher than before, with even higher revenue provided by your new, larger client base.

You should also take a look at what is missing in your competitors’ marketing and fill the void. For example, if you run a custom pool company and you know that all of your competitors just build the pool and move on, while your company actually takes the time to replace any sod, plants and fencing that was removed or damaged during the construction, make sure that your marketing emphasizes that.

Another effective approach to add to your marketing strategy is to eliminate what isn’t needed so that more emphasis can be placed on what is. Cirque du Soleil did this when competing with traditional circuses by omitting certain aspects of their shows so that they could focus on the elements that provided the highest entertainment value while creating higher profit margins. You can and should do the same thing in your marketing strategy by determining what factors are not optimal, then eliminating them in favor of those that are.

A slow economy can be rough on small businesses, but it can also give them a serious advantage if they are prepared. Are you?

A mistake that a lot of business owners and sales people make is trying to sway everyone to their way of thinking. It will never happen, and spending time trying to do so is usually a waste of your time and resources. Think about it like this. Let’s say that you are a motivational speaker and you’re meeting with a prospect about putting a program together for their company. This particular prospect believes that he can simply motivate their employes on his own, even after you explain your tremendous amount of experience in the field, multiple certifications and degrees and even several glowing testimonials from clients in the same industry as your prospect. What do most people do in this situation? They often spend a lot of time trying to convince the prospect that they bring more value to the relationship, usually to no avail. If your prospect doesn’t already believe that there is significant value in what you provide, you should move on to one that does. The most effective use of your time and resources is to target prospects that already understand the value of what you provide. The best prospects will be the ones who have previously chosen business relationships based primarily on price rather than value, and have seen the shortcomings as a result.

When the economy begins grinding to a halt like many experts feel that it is headed towards now, small business owners often feel the pressure first. More often than not, their knee-jerk reaction is to cut costs any way possible and the first thing to suffer is usually advertising. The problem with this approach is that while this does temporarily reduce overhead, it also causes an entirely new challenge; a dramatic reduction in revenue. You can only cut overhead to a certain level, but then what? What happens when the slump goes on for weeks or even months? Then you find yourself in a position with no resources and no means to generate new business.

If you want to improve your company’s position, you need to increase your advertising during slow times. This gives you an advantage over your competitors and lets you gain ground and earn market share while they are busy trying to cut costs. The leverage you produce will give you a solid foundation for even more growth once the economy picks back up. If you’re business is affected (or you think it will be affected) by a slow economy, now is the time to start getting ready by:

• Implementing a direct mail campaign
• Implementing an email campaign
• Increasing your sale calls and networking 
• Blogging more frequently
• Advertising in smaller print publications

These are just a start, but you get the idea. Now get out there and earn some exposure!

There are a lot of people using the internet to generate exposure for their businesses these days. Unfortunately, there are also a lot of people using the internet incorrectly in an attempt to generate exposure for their businesses as well. With blogs, email and article directories, it’s easier than ever to blast your information out to millions upon millions of people with little effort and as a result, just about everyone is doing it. The problem is that so few people are doing it well.

You can not simply write a vague article on a common subject that has already been written hundreds of times by hundreds of other people, post it on your blog and/or various article directories or email it to your mailing list, expecting to make any sort of an impact. If you want to make an impact, you’ll need to come up with something new and useful, something that hasn’t already been beaten to death. The keys are originality and usefulness. I’ll give you a perfect example in each case:

Example 1

I recently saw an article in an article directory titled “How do build an effective email list” which went on to say that you need to build an email list, and you should do so by allowing your website visitors to sign up on your website. The article then rambled on for about 150 words or so about how this was so valuable and you need to do it and so on, until ending with a large paragraph extolling the virtues of the author and her brilliant internet marketing experience. So, here we have an author publishing an article telling readers something they already know while not providing any original or useful information, then going on to talk about how wonderful she is.

Example 2

Take a look at Aaron Wall’s SEO Book blog where you will find frequently-updated, original and useful content on search engine optimization. Seth Godin’s blog is another example of someone who is doing it right and of course, our marketing tips blog is a fine example as well, if I may humbly say so.

The people who follow example 1 either they have no value to provide to their prospects and clients, or they have so little that they’re afraid if they give anything away, they won’t have enough left to sell. Unfortunately for them, this keeps them in a scarcity mindset and they never grow. The people who follow example 2 develop a following and build trust over time, resulting in far more revenue than they could ever hope to earn by keeping all of their knowledge to themselves. So, which group are you in?

When asked what they do, most people respond with a canned answer describing their job title. If you work in a large company doing a typical job, this is probably a suitable answer, but if you are an entrepreneur running your own business, this is far from a suitable answer.

People are busy, usually stressed and often wrapped up in their own world so when you tell them that you’re a lawyer, accountant, business consultant or whatever it is that you do, it does not stand out. To them, you are just another face in the crowd. They know that if they need the type of services you offer, they can simply visit a search engine, ask an associate or friend to refer them to someone or even pick up the yellow pages.

If you want to avoid this situation, it’s often as simple as perfecting your answer to the question. Hopefully, you’re more than just a lawyer, accountant, business consultant or whatever it is that you do. For example, one of our clients is an accountant that specializes in developing tax strategies for small businesses so they can maximize their revenue to become larger and more profitable. That’s pretty specific and definitely stands out from all of the other “accountants” in the area. Furthermore, you can bet that any small business owner who’s trying to grow their business will be interested when they hear that.

So take some time to determine what exactly it is that you do, and craft your answer around that. It will be one of the best investments of time you can make in your business.

There is really no one answer in determining the right time to hire a marketing company. For some, it may be during the start-up phase, ensuring that your products are the right fit for your target audience and the correct price points are set. For others, it may be when it’s time to move up re-brand your company and reposition yourself in your industry. However, there really are a limitless set of circumstances for each company.

The bottom line is to determine what you want to accomplish, and then determine if you are capable of achieving that on your own in a cost effective and timely manner. If handling your own marketing takes you away from your area of expertise, it has a negative impact on your overall business and you should hire a marketing company. Doing so allows you to focus on your area of expertise while continuing to grow your business.

Businesses will become more transparent.

More companies will begin to participate in open dialogue on a variety of business issues, such as pricing, innovation and service. Forward thinking business owners and managers are realizing that they can not hide from their competitors. Take a look at the insurance industry for example. When you visit the websites of most major insurance companies today, you can find not only their rates, but also the rates of competing companies. This transparency also extends to problems. The days of a few upset or dissatisfied customers being able to cause a finite amount of negative buzz about your company are long gone as the internet has given them the tools to destroy a brand in less time than it took you to build it. DreamHost knew this and took a proactive approach when pretty much everything that could go wrong, did go wrong by letting their customers know what exactly what was happening and what they were doing to correct it. Rather than trying to shift blame, they took responsibility and were very public about it and this helped them to turn a potentially crippling situation into a situation where they could show their customers that they really cared and would put forth the effort needed to fix their problems.

Businesses will become more focused

Niche businesses will become more common, and more importantly, more profitable than ever before. This is largely due to the power of the internet, allowing consumers the ability to find unusual products, as depicted in the latest Ask.com television commercials. In the past, businesses were forced to offer a wide variety of products because they could only serve a specific geographic range based on their retail location. Additional sales had to be generated via direct mail, radio or television advertising, each of which required a significant investment. Now you can have a website developed, implement a modest internet marketing campaign and reach the consumers most interested in what you have to offer all over the world through the major search engines. This intense focus allows you to get started with a smaller investment, reach a more passionate prospect who is more likely to convert to a customer and earn a larger market share more easily. It also make it easier to analyze your industry, your results and new trends so that you can make more effective business decisions.

Cross media marketing will become critical

No man is an island. Likewise, no single marketing channel is the answer to your marketing needs. All of the television advertising in the world will only do so much for your business because over time, people will become numb to it. The same goes for any medium. For example, most outdoor advertising companies will recommend their clients to move their billboard ads to different locations after several months because over time, people will become accustomed to seeing the ad and will begin to block it out. This isn’t the only factor in play here though. The other reason you need to utilize a blend of marketing channels to promote your business is because we live in a time-fragmented world today. With cell phones, email, TiVo and incredibly busy lives, prospects can’t be effectively reached in the same ways that used to be possible. On top of that, your competitors (as well a millions of other unrelated companies) are constantly bombarding the same prospects with their marketing messages, so you need to stay at the forefront of their mind – which means being everywhere. Ideally, you should utilize at least three to six channels to reach your prospects. For example, you could develop a campaign consisting of organic search engine optimization, online advertising, email marketing, direct mail marketing, and radio advertising, which would allow you to reach your prospects on their way to and from work, when they visit their favorite websites, when they check their email, use a search engine and even when they arrive at home.

Pricing models will change dramatically

Two distinct pricing models will thrive; extremely exclusive pricing and extremely competitive pricing. Consumers will look for one of two things, either something which they will gladly pay a premium for (Starbucks has done an outstanding job at this) or something that they view as a commodity and want the lowest possible price (E-Trade, for example). The middle ground will become no man’s land. The businesses that succeed will be those that determine where they stand and position themselves accordingly. If you need help deciding exactly how to position your company, you should read Blue Ocean Strategy and Trading Up.