I enjoy talking to owners of newly-opened storefronts, particularly those replacing recently-closed ones. A good marketing story usually comes out of the conversation. Take Open Space Cafe, a new SE Portland spot near my office, which opened in the location of the previous Funky Door Cafe. During my first visit last week, I had a chance to ask Megan, the owner, about her new joint and why the previous one had closed down.
According to Megan, the previous owner decided not to renew her lease and take some time off to write a book — so far so good. Then came the juicy part: When the Funky Door saw business decline on the heels of the recession, they cut hours, which led to further decrease in sales. So when the lease renewal came up, it was easy to let the business go.
Megan sounded determined to follow a different path. Instead of cutting back, she believes the way to stay in business is to add services, options, and menu items. To stop or prevent a decline in business, rather than scaling back you must expand your offering. Inasmuch product and place are a part of your marketing mix, stepping up your marketing is the way to go when the going gets tough.
Another business owner I spoke with recently had experienced a severe decline in business in the past couple of years. She’d pull in six figures from her business, now she’s had the worst two years in more than twenty, making barely a quarter of her previous high. Her solution? Unlike many others in her industry who have quit rather than fight for survival, she’s ramping up her marketing efforts by refreshing her company’s brand and developing a marketing plan for expansion.
Expanding in the face of decline — investing in marketing when you’re losing business — seems counterintuitive. But that’s precisely what you need to do to counter that downward spiral. Contraction reduces options for your customers, and it communicates trouble: People prefer success to failure, and that goes for where they spend their money, too. By contrast, expansion communicates optimism and success, and it’s more welcoming and attractive.
The only way to stop a vicious cycle is to turn it into a virtuous one. (Systems thinking has a lot to say about such reinforcing and balancing loops.) Which means smarter, not strictly more, marketing.
Though the Open Space Cafe’s Yelp reviews are nothing to write home about, and though it’s perhaps trying to be too many things — sustainable coffee shop with a kids’ area, serving drinks and brunch on weekends, and offering the space for small event rentals — you can’t say they don’t have the marketing common sense.
If sustainability means the capacity to continue and endure, sustainable marketing helps increase that capacity. If your business is headed south, change course with smarter marketing.
What do you think? Have you seen any examples of businesses increasing their marketing efforts in the face of decline?
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Image credit: jesse.millan
