Slashed marketing budgets and increasing pressure to demonstrate a return on investment; are you currently prioritising your marketing during the economic downturn? By shifting your perspective you can turn the economic climate into a positive opportunity.

Gaining audience trust
Regularly communicate with your customers and market. Be seen as transparent to gain their trust during harder times and speak openly about the pressures on your business while demonstrating empathy with theirs.

Realise your brand potential
During tough times weak brands only become weaker, whilst strong brands can thrive. Use the downturn to reinforce your brand proposition in everything you do. Maintain innovation and add value to discourage your customers turning to cheaper alternatives in an increasingly commodity market.

The power of PR
When customers seek advice/help for their business to ride the storm, effective PR will build your brand’s credibility like no other communication. Tap into their concerns and offer your expertise to combat the downturn’s effects through insight and best practice examples while informing them of the solutions you offer.

Advertise wisely
Negotiate and take advantage of volume buying across a myriad of products. Consolidate your spend with a market-leading title and demand leverage across online, sponsorships, print campaigns and events.

Use technology to cut costs
Find smarter communication techniques to optimise spend and impact. Use your website as a two-way medium with your customers; use regular e-marketing to maintain an effective, inexpensive touch point with them and target their channel preferences in more cost effective way than expensive direct marketing.

Retain and gain
Retaining existing customers is cheaper than obtaining new ones especially when competitors are promoting cheaper prices. Lead on service and deliver a customer experience through frequent regular touch points. Offering loyalty incentives and keeping customers informed will retain their interest and view you as their preferred supplier.

Energy costs, high fuel prices, food price inflation…and now a global economic downturn, but it’s not all doom and gloom. The Hub works with some of the industry’s most successful brands and understands the impact on the foodservice sector like no other communications agency.

Call The Hub today, and maximise your communications budget in an intelligent and effective way.

Have a read of our first journalist interview with John Porter of The Publican. Each month we will be profiling different people within the industry.

What is the best Christmas present you ever remember getting?
Major Matt Mason, who was a 1960s spaceman action figure.

Who would you most like to go for a drink with? (dead or alive).
It would have to be someone with loads of good stories to tell. Maybe an explorer, like Sir Richard Burton, the Victorian who translated the Arabian Knights from Arabic.  

Prediction for the pub sector in 2009?
Another tough one, I’m afraid. There’s still some capacity to come out of the market.

Read more...

This month we were amused by:

The new Mactini, inbound vs outbound marketing, The 2008 Google Zeitgeist and Banksy's hot dogs!

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