5 WAYS

MARKETERS CAN

WIN IN A DOWN MARKET

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It’s a down market.

Investors and competitors are

licking their wounds.

And there’s no relief in sight.

Here’s what’s happening:

WHAT CAN A MARKETER DO?

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A. Sales doesn’t want to cut

production for fear of affecting

forecasts and commission.

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B. Finance doesn’t want

to lower shipments,

where the profits come in.

FRAGILE

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C. Marketing is told

to reduce —or at best,

freeze — spending until

conditions improve.

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In a down market, marketers need

to do five things in order to take

control and grow share, ultimately

winning in a difficult situation.

UNDERSTAND THE MARKET BETTER THAN EVER BEFORE

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Seems obvious, but in good times, companies and marketers have

a way of taking the volume for granted. And that means taking

customers for granted.

But in down times, those customers are not buying.

And if the marketer doesn’t ever figure out who is and is not buying,

there is no opportunity to focus on the winners.

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Buyers are stable. They know THEIR

markets and they’re continuing to serve

those markets. They are the winners

in their specific end markets, and that

indicates they are the means to winning

in your link of the chain as well.

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First, there are Buyers and Nonbuyers.

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The Nonbuyers do not have as much control.

They rode the wave up and bought what they needed.

But now the down wave is crashing around them,

and they don’t buy anything.

SEGMENT MERCILESSLY

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Segment who IS buying,

and more specifically

WHAT they’re buying.

IMPER ATIVE:

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Market declines are not uniform across

all customers. Some buy at a normal rate,

and others drop out altogether.

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The sales force has a bias toward

the customers they like.

Production has products they like

to make more than others.

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Finance will always pick high-margin,

low-cash utilization products.

And NONE of that matters.

Do the analysis.

Slice and dice the data.

Look at WHO is buying WHAT.

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Segment customers into

Buyers and Nonbuyers.

And THEN segment the

products the Buyers are

buying compared with the

products the Nonbuyers

are buying.

AND THEN?

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In many cases, the picture

will look very different

between the two groups.

The Buyers will be more

methodical, more planned,

more structured and

more consistent.

The Nonbuyers will be less

consistent, more opportunistic,

but also mostly looking for a deal,

meaning lower margins for you. And

the Nonbuyers will find those deals

because your competitors who don’t

do this as well as you do will have

product to dump.

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And in that segmentation, look at history.

Often, Nonbuyers enter the market and

buy aggressively in the up times, then fall

off worse in the down market.

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Plotting that behavior can really

determine who to build your

business on and who is

really only opportunistic.

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If you build share only on opportunistic

buyers in the up market, they will turn into

Nonbuyers in the down — a worse fall-off.

IF you market to the consistent Buyer both

up and down, you add stability to your

company — a bonus.

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e-book to learn how to win

in a down market.

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