Financial Crisis Series: Staying Competitive

How do you stay competitive when your sales are stagnant or dropping?

Cutting costs decreases the cost of goods sold - giving you a bigger profit margin.

Increase your marketing efforts. Most of your competitors are slashing the marketing budget and decreasing their exposure - this is your chance to outshine them and gain new clients and customers. Take a look at your website and make sure it's optimized for organic searches (SEO).

Expand your PR campaign to including pitching stories to local newspapers about how your product can help people save money. If you're doing the PR yourself - this is free.

Improve your product to make it more attractive to customers. Have the product development and marketing teams determine which improvements will make the most impact in the marketplace and to the bottom line.

Don't shoot yourself in the foot.

• Don't decrease your customer service to the point where customers can feel it.
• Don't put off equipment maintenance (repairs are more expensive by far).
• Don't decrease the quality of your product.
  

We hope you've found this series to be helpful. If you'd like to share tips of your own, please send us a comment.

Labels: Budgeting, Cash Flow, Finance Tips

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