It’s happening again.
After a few months of relative calm from the media, we’re back in the place where lockdown is upon us, and bad news is being propagated on a daily basis.
And if you read my recent comments, you’ll know just how vital it is not to get bogged down in the hysteria.
What history tells us, quite plainly, is that fortune favours the brave in times of recession and economic uncertainty.
It’s the kitchen retailers that view this as an opportunity, rather than a catastrophe, that’ll come out of the other side smiling.
Lots of your competitors won’t see it like this.
Fear will set in, and when that happens, the instinct is to start throwing everything out of the boat to keep it afloat.
Cut advertising spend. Reduce operational costs. Turn off marketing channels.
All of which creates a vacuum for you to move into.
When everyone is advertising, it’s difficult to separate yourself from the pack, AND because the price is demand-driven, it costs more.
But, when players leave the market or reduce their spend, two things happen:
1. More consumer attention is up for grabs
2. The cost of advertising goes down
We saw this back in the Spring – the kitchen retailers that continued to advertise and capitalise on the increased online attention available got more leads and paid less for them.
In other words, if you focus on just ‘staying afloat’, you’ve got every chance of actually missing the boat and squandering this considerable opportunity.
But the perfect storm is rising again.
Right now, with another lockdown upon us, what is certain is that in the coming weeks, more people will again spend more time at home…
Which means more time scrutinising their kitchen and more time to become dissatisfied with it.
And when they pop online to start their first tentative enquiries, who will they find?
If you want the answer to be you, you need to take action, focusing not just on staying afloat, but on not missing the boat.
We’ll be discussing this in more detail on The Big KBB Marketing Call, this Friday, and we’d love you to join us.
We’ll also take the opportunity to discuss how independent kitchen retailers around the UK are approaching this lockdown and how they’ve planned to operate throughout, or not.
It’s content, conversation and community and it’s on Zoom this Friday, 11am-12pm. You can register for free by clicking here now.
Hope to see you there, and as always, feel free to forward this invitation to anyone you think could benefit from attending the call.