It seems that everywhere you turn, you hear more doom and gloom!  Is there any hope?  There sure is! This quarter is shaping up to be my best quarter ever, and December is probably going to be my best month ever.  A number of my clients initially decided to put things on hold when they learned of the financial crisis, playing it safe until they could figure out which end was up. Like many, I was concerned as well.

However, I noticed a trend–customers are trading downwards! Forced to make financial tradeoffs, they’re trading down from Target to Wal-Mart. Down from Uno’s to McDonald’s.  What does this mean to you?  It means you have a huge opportunity to capture new customers that may be leaving your upper-tier competitors.  These are extremely profitable and potentially very loyal customers.  If you play your cards right, you can keep them far longer than the end of the recession!  Read on for an article that talks about this in more detail.

By changing your customer strategy slightly to capture this new dynamic, you can easily acquire more business, much faster than before.  Don’t give in to the temptation to stop marketing or to stop gathering customer insight.  There is still business waiting for you, and as this article points out, those companies that continued to invest in marketing through the recession enjoyed huge returns for as many as three years beyond the end of the recession.

How are YOU taking advantage of the changing times? How is your customer strategy changing? I’d love to hear what you’re seeing in your customer base and what you’re doing to capitalize on it!  Send me a note at cnbingham@predictiveconsulting.com with your story.