When the economic situation is tight, every decision is questioned, and every position is challenged. In order to get your clients' full attention in these challenging times, you need to consider two points:
- Focus your marketing message 100% on your customer.
- Explain in your marketing message how you solve their most pressing problem.
Analyse your customer's situation and identify the problem that ties up the most resources - be it time, costs or something else. Consider what is preventing your customer from solving this problem themselves, i.e. how your expertise or product can remove blockages. Look at the problem on three levels:
- External
- Internal
- Philosophical
Identifying the external level is the easiest. Your client may be neglecting content marketing because resources have been cut. It is obvious that new blog posts, newsletters and white papers are not being produced.
To identify the internal problem, you need to ask yourself how it feels to your client when they can no longer serve their target audience. Are they afraid of not being considered for the next contract?
You recognise the philosophical problem when you ask yourself: What shouldn't be like this? To stay in our example: It shouldn't be that the company-customer relationship is not maintained and nurtured, especially in difficult times.
Now you offer solutions to your client's problem with empathy and authority. For example, you understand that content production needs to tie up less time and budget, and you offer them solutions for this. With this strategy, you can count on loyalty and acceptance, even when the red pen is being applied everywhere.
Why should you focus on the customer's problem just when the economic situation is challenging? Neuroscience provides the answer: our brain processes two categories of information better than any other:
- information that ensures our survival, and
- facts that move us forward.
Information that passes this filter is consciously processed, while we quickly forget unimportant details. That's why it is extremely successful to focus on your customers' pressing problems, especially when they feel under pressure.
We would be happy to advise you on how to equip your messaging for a tough winter. Make an appointment here for a no-obligation consultation because challenges are always opportunities to improve.