Marketing Burglary 101 - How to Steal Marketshare

What is usually the first thing a business cuts back on when the economy goes south or money becomes tight? Is it staffing? Training? R&D? Try marketing. Why? Because most companies, especially smaller businesses, erroneously view marketing as an expense rather than as an investment. But in today's economic environment an old axiom is more applicable than ever before: You've got to spend money to make money.

When a business drastically reduces its marketing spend or worse, cuts it out all together, it is inviting theft of its most prized possession - its customers. Without marketing, and the sales that flow from its activities, a business can become vulnerable to the kind of theft that steals precious customers and marketshare in broad daylight.

The marketplace is fair game, and so too are your competitors customers. By engaging potential customers with carefully planned and executed marketing activities, your business will embrace new customers with a warm welcome while the competition kisses them goodbye; not that they will even get a chance.

Now is the time to allocate crucial budget dollars to marketing, advertising and promotional activities.

Here are 3 simple and inexpensive marketing burglary 101 tips:

1) Get back to the basics, the fundamentals that made you successful in the first place. Think back to when you started with the business, or when the founder started the business way back when. What where the principles that made success happen? Chances are you'll find lots of hard work, enduring optimism and passion, and a powerful vision of the future as the driving forces behind the growth. Why should it be any different now? Share your optimism and passion with associates and customers. Live your vision every day. Work hard, and have fun doing it. And let your prospects and customers see and feel these in engaging ways through marketing and promotion. Everyone likes a winner. Think, talk and act like one and you'll earn the business.

2) Safeguard and take care of your existing customers like your very survival depended on it...because it does. Customer acquisition and retention are not mutually exclusive. They each represent future opportunity and revenue for your business. Treat every prospect and existing customer as if they were your very first. Treat them like royalty and roll out the red carpet from the time they walk in, call in or email in. If you don't, be assured there's a marketing burglar out there who has devised a strategic plan and marketing deliverables designed to do just that. The best defense, in this case, is a better offense. And marketing is all about being offensive: moving the chains, advancing the ball, and scoring.

3) Be creative and innovative. Don't look at the glass as half empty. If your financial resources are limited, brainstorm creative ideas that are inexpensive to execute but carry a punch. No money for R&D? Think of ways your existing product or service can be modified, re-packaged, or extended vertically or horizontally to new markets. Think big. Act big. Even on a shoestring budget you can reach potential customers and steal marketshare. Remember: the customer is not hearing from your competition any more. They've taken a marketing nap. Someone still needs to provide the products and services the customer needs. It might as well be you. Let them know where to find you.

There are still lots of opportunities to grow your business and attract new customers out there. You may have to work a little harder and a little smarter than before, but they are there. Now is the time to shake every tree. Turn over every rock. You can survive; even thrive, if you are willing to take bold moves to generate sales by targeting and attracting your competitors' customers now. It just takes being creative, putting a simple marketing and promotion plan in place, and then thinking like a marketing burglar.