Yes, the economy is not in the best of shape, but that is good news for you. Why? Because you are going to provide such a good product / service, customers will be flocking to you! Seriously, it is THE time to devote your efforts to more and better marketing, because people are looking for value and benefit for their hard-earned money, and if you can let them know about what you do, they will be interested in what you can offer.

We will be covering a whole lot more on specific areas of marketing in the coming weeks, but seeing it is the first week in January, lets looks at some quick things you can do right now.

What are your objectives this year?
Map out what you and the business want to achieve - don’t make it too easy, and do set some challenging ones. These can be financial, or not, but they should be specific. If you work in an organisation with more than one employee, try making it a collaborative process and get a degree of agreement - it helps enormously with buy in and getting everyone involved.

Revisit your business plan
Hang on, you do have one don’t you? Not all businesses do, and especially not some of the smaller ones. Business plans can be monstrous, heavy documents which take weeks of preparation and are then cast aside to be never looked at again. Please make sure you don’t fall into this trap.

Aim small - be precise and concise. Make sure EVERYONE understands where you are going and where you want to be (look back to the objectives). Don’t be shy to answer the difficult questions and perhaps even try and plan for the unexpected. Just make sure you look at it regularly and do change it of you need to!

Research
This is something you can do if you need to write a business plan. Research and testing are 2 HUGE aspects of marketing which are often forgotten or not even on the radar. If in doubt, any doubt at all, then ask! Do some research and get the answers - it’s easy to do, and we’ll take you through some good ideas in future posts.

Listen
A quick one here. If you do one thing really well this year, listen. Listen to the market, your competitors and your competition. Businesses don’t listen enough. It is very under-valued skill.

Get your paperwork in order and if possible, bin it!
Paperwork can be a mind-numbing, time-killing nightmare. The start of the year gives you a good opportunity to completely change your ‘paperwork’ strategy. If you want my advice, start using the web for a whole load of things you currently use paper for. There are some real advantages of shifting a lot of your business paperwork and processes online, not least for the convenience, and then there is the collaborative nature which can really accelerate your internal processes.

Plan something radical
In 2009, you will need to stand out. Do something radical, something new, something that will be noticed and something that will get people talking. Start thinking now.

If you have any other ideas, then get commenting!

People often get confused about what marketing really is, but if asked, you can look wise and tell them:

Marketing comprises of 5 key stages:

- Getting people to know you
- Getting people to like you
- Getting people to trust you
- Getting people to use you or buy from you
- And VERY important, get people to recommend you

The good news is that marketing has evolved, and is not just about placing an advert in a magazine. The adoption of the online world, the spread of broadband in the UK and people spending more and more time online, even using mobiles, all means that your marketing effort needs to be directed towards the web, but also gives you a vast array of technology at your disposal.

With the current economic climate, it is essential that you and your business make sure that your marketing is going to working harder than ever for you in 2009. It is no longer good enough to just assign some money “for a few ads”, it is highly risky to not take advantage of the web, and it will be plain foolhardy to rely on traditional business you have always had.

In future posts, we will talking about marketing - covering subjects such as branding, direct marketing, word of mouth, and also technology - leveraging the web for you success, social media, advertising and consumer engagement.

The Council of Mortgage Lenders has welcomed today’s rate cut, and believe “it will help the wider economy, even if it cannot be reflected universally in lower mortgage rates.”

The impact this will have on borrowers, new and existing is yet to be seen, although many lenders have pledged to pass on the full extent of the saving. There is still the issue of collars being imposed by many mortgage lenders.

This will feature very heavily in the media over the coming days, as there has been an indication that possibly certain lenders will not be able to enforce these collars due to the lack of this information in the KFI’s issued at outset.

Shane