Is your marketing a money pit?

It's now more important than ever that your marketing delivers sales for your business. Matthew Nolan shares some useful tips on how to maximise your returns for every marketing dollar invested in your fashion business.

Whether its magazine ads, in-store promotions or fashion shows, there's an underlying expectation that all marketing "investments" need to pay good dividends. The secret to achieving this during a downturn is to adapt your marketing strategy, as follows:

Look for a bargain
It can be tempting to quickly cut marketing when sales start to decline, but if you can resist this urge you may find your business gets a jump on the competition. Instead of cutting back, it could be wiser to look out for specials, reduced or distressed rates on advertising opportunities, letting your business stand out in a less crowded advertising space.

Tried and tested
Focus your advertising and marketing on your most popular, tried and tested products. Let your customers know that you still offer these top selling products, as they're more likely to makes purchases of these products. Focusing on the latest and greatest products may make for great news items, but they won't translate into massive sales increases.

Alternate advertising
Capitalise on the relationships you have with existing customers and buyers, through direct marketing to these customers.  Electronic newsletters and catalogues can be cost effective ways of maintain contact and awareness of your brand and products.

Be selective
Sales of top end and luxury items are slowing faster than most at the moment, so consider focusing your marketing on products that are accessible to the broadest possible market. This may mean introducing new entry point products and reducing luxury lines till an upturn in consumer spending occurs.

Completed sales
Prior to a customer actually making a purchase, not a cent of income has been received or marketing dollar recouped. This means the key to assessing the success of a marketing campaign is to record it's resulting sales revenue. Regular reviews of these results will make it easy to reduce any non-essential marketing that falls into the "brand building" and "customer awareness" categories, instead focusing efforts and expenditure during these times on securing customers and sales.

Quality
It's great to get lots of calls and visits from eager potential customers, but if they aren't the sort of buyers you're seeking to attract it can quickly turn sour. Not only will you be unable to assist them and thereby generate income, they'll also consume a substantial amount of you and your staff's precious time. A quality measure in any results can help avoid advertising in the wrong places and to inappropriate customer groups.

Once you've adjusted your marketing formula, conduct regular reviews to capitalise on upturns in particular customer markets as some will occur earlier than the general market.

By Matthew Nolan