Marketing tactics that you need to avoid

With the economy being stuck in a rut, your business is trying to think of new ways to attract customers. Most businesses are doing everything that they can to attract new customers because they need to make money so they can pay their expenses and their employees; nobody wants to close down their business. With how desperate you are to make money you are probably thinking of new marketing tactics that you can use to entice customers to purchase your product or service.

In a downward economy, the last thing that your business wants to do is to scare off any potential customers. Nor do they want to make any mistakes when it comes to their marketing tactics, making a mistake means wasting money. Here are some marketing tactics that you will need to avoid so that you can attract new customers and keep the customers that you currently have.

Number one: Public relations stunts

One marketing tactic that you will want to avoid is putting together any kind of public relations stunt that can be deemed flashy. The reason your business needs to avoid any kind of flashy stunt is that it will be considered a waste of money. Your potential customers will think that your business is wasting money, which can be better spent on paying employees or other expenses for your business. In a tight economy you want to gain your customers trust, which means no flashy stunts so that people do not think your business is desperate for customers. If people think, your business is hurting for customers they will assume your business is struggling, which is not good for you.

Number two: Faith in your product

While faith in your product is something that you are supposed to have, you do not want to sit back and think that your product or service is going to sell itself. You are going to need to spend some money on marketing; you can't wait until better times because if you don't make ends meet during the rough times you won't be around for the better times. The best thing that you can do is to keep in contact with your current customers by sending them an email or even a small coupon in the mail each month. You still want to work on attracting new customers, just not as hard as you want to focus on your existing customers. This can be tricky because you do not want to spend everything that you have on marketing to new customers. One thing that you can do to try attracting new customers without spending a ton of money on marketing to people who are cutting back on their spending is to rely on networking to target your new customers.

Number three: Advertising

Most business managers are aware of the fact that it costs more to put together a television advertisement than it does to mail out a marketing advertisement. In a rough economy, you will want to focus more on mailing out marketing pieces, such as coupons or newsletters, rather than spending your money on making advertisements. Just keep in mind that spending money on advertising is the fastest way to drain your marketing budget and you don't even get the benefit of coming into direct contact with your customers.

Number four: No goals

While it is good to think positive during rough times you still need to make sure that you set realistic goals. Setting realistic goals is the best thing that you can do to keep your marketing budget under control, and it will make you more likely to succeed. If your goals are too high or you don't set any goals, you are simply setting yourself up to fail.