Martin Köpp

The UK is in one of the longest recessions in history with 6% of economic output lost. Despite quantitative easing banks still are not lending to smaller businesses. An estimate of nearly 30,000 businesses closed in 2009 and we are still not out of the woods yet. As a business, if you have made it this far, that is great news. You may have seen some of your competitors fail, lessening the competition in the market. This means even though the market share may be less, you have a bigger slice of it. In the end it will be the strong companies that will survive. The ones that are easy to adapt to a crisis and probably will be strong for years to come.

The UK is in one of the longest recessions in history with 6% of economic output lost. Despite quantitative easing banks still are not lending to smaller businesses. An estimate of nearly 30,000 businesses closed in 2009 and we are still not out of the woods yet. As a business, if you have made it this far, that is great news. You may have seen some of your competitors fail, lessening the competition in the market. This means even though the market share may be less, you have a bigger slice of it. In the end it will be the strong companies that will survive. The ones that are easy to adapt to a crisis and probably will be strong for years to come.

Even though there are continual economic issues, it continues to be vital to efficiently market your business. A business that doesn't have efficient marketing won't be able to keep thriving. It might be necessary for you to decrease your budget and maintain the areas with the greatest rate of efficiency. Cutting the budget completely could be a huge error. A business that's not obtaining new customers actively can't grow. As current clients go away, the customer base diminishes which means that halting marketing completely might be a deadly error.

This means the marketing that you do needs to have more punch. Successful marketing needs to be targeted; making sure all you budget is spent in the right market. It needs to be long lasting; so the budget is not all spent in a 30 second radio commercial. It should engage your target audience so they notice your brand and know how to contact you. Lastly it needs to have an impact on your target audience; you need to give them a reason why they should come to you and not to one of your competitors.

This may sound like a tall order from any marketing strategy but I am about to reveal the one method that contains all of these aspects. This method is adopted by almost all the most successful companies in the world and now the internet has become so widely used this method is now even easier to deploy for your company. The answer lies in promotional merchandise.

Promotional merchandise is when a product branded with your logo and possibly company details is given to your target audience. There are thousands of different products to choose from and you should choose the ones that reflect your brand or the target audience. Every one loves a freebie and this method of advertising can be surprisingly effective. You get to choose exactly who you want to give the merchandise to and these people take your products home or to their offices - right where other customers probably are! Promotional merchandise does not have to be expensive. There are products on the market from 8p. Do you know of any advertising method that starts out so cheap and is still this effective?

You can also use this method to reward your existing clients in the form of corporate gifts. This not only does this reinforce your brand, keeping it at the forefront of your clients mind but it can work in being rewarded with loyalty and an enticement to buy more of your companies services.