Author:  Jon Roberts
www.jnkservices.co.uk

During these times when the financial markets are collapsing and on the high street we are all playing the game “which shop will close next?”  It is easy to get caught up and see only a bleak future for our businesses.

The other day, I was talking to a refrigeration engineer (nothing to do with IT or websites I know!) – his business has never been so busy!  At first this seemed crazy to me, the recession aside, it is the middle of winter  after all!  He explained that instead of buying new refrigeration units local businesses are spending money on servicing and maintaining their existing units; giving his industry a welcome boost at a time when others are closing the shutters.

This got me thinking, a recession is not something that effects every business, we all still need certain goods and services and businesses that are involved commercially in the procurement of these goods or services need not fear recession.  We all need food, fuel, clothing and so on.

OK so admittedly some clothing stores are finding it difficult Adams went into receivership recently, Marks and Spencer recorded a drop of 7.1% in its retail sales figures for the 13 weeks to 27 December 2008.

However, Marks and Spencer also revealed that its online sales for the same period were up 29%!

• Debenhams reports year-on-year online sales in the 12 weeks to 3rd Jan 2009 were up 37.4%
• Domino’s Pizza said online sales soared 73.7% to £55.8million in 2008
• Ocado reported its best ever festive season.  During the week before Christmas 2008 its online sales soared 97% year-on-year
• Play.com, the UK’s third most visited online retailer, had more than 1000 orders per minute being processed on its busiest trading day (8December 2008) this was up from 700 on the previous year.

(source for these statistics imrg By the way IMRG is a great resource for online usage statistics pertaining to Retail and e-commerce in general)

Is it just me, or is there a trend happening here?   Could this recession herald the much promised Golden Age of E-Commerce?  OK, I don’t need a history lesson here, I know about the .com boom, but that went bust!  We are yet to see a time when the majority of transactions are carried out online, perhaps if this recession isn’t the event to usher this period in, it may well be the precursor.

More and more people are using the Internet and this is being used more and more for common areas of peoples lives.  Areas that are quite time consuming, such as the weekly grocery shop, and waste valuable leisure time.  Recent statistics about how the UK use the Internet are good indicators of this:

• 68.6% of the UK population regularly used the Internet during 2008 (ETC New Media Trend Watch, 2008)
• Britons have spent more than £100bn online since 1995 (IMRG 2007)
• UK Shoppers spent £4.67bn online in December 2008 – 14.2% up on last year (IMRG Capgemini, 2009)
• 60% of the population are turning to the web to find what they want locally compared to 22% who used traditional print formats (Search Engine Watch, June 2008)

“It’s tempting to cut marketing spending in a downturn. Don’t. If anything, you should be increasing your spend. “When we look at the last recession, the better business actually held that expenditure to win market share,” Will says. “When things turned around they were much better placed.”

If your competitors are struggling during the downturn, you can quickly take advantage of the fact and grab customers from them – but it will only happen if your brand is in good shape.

A great example of a company ramping up its marketing spend at a time when its market is struggling is online travel company Wotif. It has launched its first mainstream advertising campaign, just as the tourism market is softening. It’s gutsy, but you can bet those people that do want to buy online travel will have Wotif at top of mind.” – Greg Will, PwC’s Private Companies Practice (extract from Strategy in a Downturn – 10 lessons for the last recession by James Thomson 1 May 2008 Smartcompany.com.au)

Search through Google and you will find countless stories of companies that not only survived the last recession, but actually increased their market share and came out stronger.  Without exception, all of these businesses have one thing in common – they increased their marketing expenditure.

One piece of good advice I was given years ago when I was a young salesman still holds true today – “everyday do something to market your business” doesn’t matter what (well don’t waste your time with things that actually won’t get your businesses name out there) just do something.  Also, don’t think that just handing your business card out is good marketing, it helps but unless you effectively follow it up, it won’t help you in the slightest.

In my next article, I will look at ways to improve your marketing in this recession – simple ideas that may help, perhaps that can be built upon.