7 Marketing Strategies for Times of Inflation
At present, one of the main concerns for people globally is inflation. Prices have risen sharply around the world.
In this sense, we can observe a decrease in consumer confidence and also more demanding behaviors. This can translate into more informed users before making a purchase and a growth in the search for the word “discounts” by more than 18%.
Faced with this situation, marketing and sales professionals have rethought where they should direct their strategies in order to maintain companies’ sales and ensure that brands can continue to meet the needs of consumers without losing their trust.
In this article we will talk about the 7 marketing and sales keys that you can carry out to grow your business in the face of inflation:
Know the market
It may sound illusory to try to overcome times of high inflation (even to take advantage of good times), if you do not have knowledge of the environment understood by competitors, customers and suppliers.
Experts advise thinking and acting in “customer mode”, since, in times of uncertainty, in their opinion, consumers are the ones who have the most power and companies must change their attitudes.
You must understand in the best way what customers are looking for, what satisfies them and what they don’t, why they choose the brand or why they choose others, why customers are lost and what should be done to bring them back.
Improve results through loyalty
80% of the turnover of profitable companies is produced by 20% of their customers. We are talking about the well-known core-customers, which are part of the assets with the highest value that any organization has.
In the world of digital marketing, loyalty is a key concept. Even the smallest purchase from a first customer in a business means an opportunity for loyalty.
Customers are the key to success, and Google Ads campaigns can be key to getting traffic from potential consumers.
Differentiate yourself and add value to your content
Many of the big brands let us know that the formula for success is not only in competitiveness, but rather in differentiation. That it also avoids leaving them exposed, as far as possible, to market instability and context crises.
An example is Apple products for their magnificence. Just look at the reactions of its users crowded in front of stores at the time of the launch of a new device.
This is why customers value very positively suppliers who only provide them with a little more than their competitors. If a different, new and relevant proposal is offered, it will be much better. In this sense, creativity is very important, as it helps to keep alive the illusion of customers and enhances the mutual relationship.
Manage price perception
In times of crushing inflation and low demand, of course one of the biggest challenges lies in transferring cost increases to prices, without scaring away consumers. We can say that an abrupt and immediate transfer usually results in a strong reduction in volumes.
There are few consumers who do not ask about the offers, which is why marketing experts recommend not avoiding this concern. You must have a pricing structure that allows you to face promotions with discounts and even novel combos that are capable of making it difficult to compare directly with the prices of the competition.
But of course, never make general discounts that greatly affect the profitability and margins of your business.
It is important that you know that it is not at all convenient to reduce the quantity or quality of the product offered, since in that way you begin to kill the brand.
Give greater importance to the Dark Funnel than to the traditional funnel
Not only should the behavior of users within the company’s website and digital platforms be studied, in order to analyze what they are looking for, where they stop browsing and, finally, make the purchase.
This is a traditional scheme, known as a sales funnel, from which you must move to the Dark Funnel. It is of greater importance to discover what we do not have a trace of in the funnel, that is, what a customer does on the network and outside it, to collect as much information as possible about how, when and where and with whom they are informed.
Also where you are interacting and talking to gather the necessary information. what we do not know may be more important than what is digitally traced.
Offers financing
We know that the activity of mass consumption is conditioned to the sources of financing available for at least more than 5 years. otherwise, the unanimous assessment is that it is being bought expensive.
It is therefore necessary to take advantage of the possible higher volume of sales in order to have better purchase costs, including the generation of alliances or pools.
Invest in communication
In these recessionary times, advertising and promotion in the media together with points of sale automatically generates a loss of presence.
However, it is precisely these moments when communication spending is most effective. To a large extent, advertising is a zero-sum game, when the competition cuts its investment, its own communication actions gain more visibility and increase its opportunities to attract consumers.