It has always been said that customers are driven by emotion and they buy what they want rather than what they need. During the better times we have always marketed this way, but things have changed.



With the world economy as it is, even people that do have money to spare are becoming more careful with their spending and people are buying more of the things they need rather than just buying on a whim, or purely on emotion. More and more of your customers are questioning their need to buy certain items that have always been part of their regular buying pattern.

So you might well ask, "how does this affect me?"

How it will probably be affecting you is by you having to be more aware of what you need to be selling to keep your turnover levels up as high as you can. You need to be specialling items that your customers need but you must buy them at the right price to allow yourself a profit as well.

Have a chat to your customers and ask them:

- what they need more of - what they want good prices on - what is essential to them - what they are not buying at the moment that they always bought before - what will help them the most with their budget

RUN A COMPETITION

If you don't like to ask these questions of your clients, set up a tick and flick form for them to fill in. Set it up as a competition and have it all beautifully displayed and inviting on your counter top. By getting these answers you could be saving yourself thousands in dead stock over the next few months. Make an effort to get the questions right on the enquiry form.

AND you could also be collecting their emails and tell them that you will be offering specials to online customers only. This is another way to keep in touch with your customers and entice them to keep coming to your place of business rather than going to the competition.

Our local supermarket has started specialling '3 for $5'. This type of specialling and marketing seems ludicrous to me in the financial times that we have right now. Unless you want to buy multiple of that item you don't even bother to purchase at all. At least if you are buying special items one at a time you can put it in the cupboard for a later date and not worry about the money spend.

Give consideration to this in your marketing strategy. Small business operators need to negotiate good deals with their suppliers, after all suppliers need to get as much business as they can too. Use these deals to run your specials for your small business marketing. Only ever run specials that you are making a profit on in these difficult financial times.

Copyright (c) 2009 Kaye Dennan