As we began to sell more, despite the crisis

At the end of 2014, the economic crisis in Russia finally reached the regions and advertising budgets have dropped very significantly. The city portal, of course, also had a hard time, although until then we felt very well. It was necessary to urgently invent how to keep at least current income, not to mention their increase, because Customers, one by one, refused annual offerings, citing the unstable economic situation.

Having carefully considered the possibilities we have, we did the following:
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1. We did not cut staff. At all. Just become more attentive to compliance with plans for KPI for the production department, and more closely monitor the implementation of plans for calls and meetings at the sales department. Abbreviations are always a definite signal for the team, and we did not want to send such a signal. In addition, we didn’t have any extra employees, and if someone was underloaded, we quickly found something to do.

2. Instead of a cost reduction strategy, on the contrary, we decided to launch a strategy to increase our promotional activity. True, they did it practically without financial expenses, mostly agreeing with everyone about the work on barter. As a result, by the end of the year, some customers even said: “Well, you are great, I’m not going anywhere in the city - everywhere is your advertisement, how can you do it?”

3. Involved the strategy “Take what they give” - if the client said that he had a certain amount and he was ready to give it for the offer, despite the fact that the offer was much more expensive, we began to agree to the client’s conditions much more often. In fact, the same big discounts that many companies offer in the advertising field, but with all of my unwillingness to follow this approach, at that moment we didn’t have to choose too much - all of them fell in price, and some customers began to choose not according to the principle, where better and more appropriate for business, and where more discount will be given.

4. In order not to give very “wild” discounts, we changed our product line, adding as many items as possible with a small price, in particular:

a. We switched to a number of banner places for sales by show. This may seem strange to some - “How, do you still have someone buying banners monthly?”. But in small towns, even at the end of the 14th year, not all customers were ready to buy banners by show, because did not always understand what it is. Such a transition allowed to sell one place to more customers for less money.

b. Since many people faced the danger of long-term cooperation due to an unknown future, we began to offer many bonuses and additional accommodations designed to compensate for these fears.

c. Developed proposals for other advertising opportunities, primarily with a decrease in the base price. So, we began to offer package postings of news, sometimes at a discount of up to 50%, but only with the purchase of a certain number of outlets of this news. This has greatly reduced the cost of one news, however, since the client had to pay the entire package at once, the average bill almost did not fall.

5. Enhanced customer service in order to preserve both those who have worked with them for a long time and those who just came. We began to actively find out how things are with customers, offer some free placements, even adding specially some sections in which customers would be interested to be placed.

6. We started selling other advertising media in order to maximize the range of opportunities we have. We began to negotiate with those companies that do not have their own sales departments, but there is an opportunity to place something somewhere, and because of the crisis, the incoming flow has become less. This allowed us to use those segments of clients with whom we had not worked before, or worked very little due to the lack of suitable products. Since there were new products and new carriers, and the opportunity to work with new customers appeared.
As a result of all the activities carried out, the average check, of course, fell, but the total number of customers increased, thereby holding back, and by the end of 2015, and even increasing income compared to 2014.

Our general mood at that time could not be called rainbow, but instead of wanting to beat ourselves somewhere far away and somehow wait out difficult times, we decided to take a much more active position, which we do not regret at all now.

We had a similar situation in 2008–2009, when there was also an economic crisis. Then we were engaged in the development of sites and then just as now, the demand for this service has plummeted. Having remained, in fact, without new customers (at that time we did not have a sales department) and providing support services to a small number of old customers, we thought about what to do next? Since the company had very little expenses, we decided to do something useful, on which we could earn money. This something turned out to be a city portal, which is now one of the main sources of income for our company.

In fact, the crisis is a great time for those who are not afraid to work hard and are brave enough to challenge themselves. At least just by starting to think actively (what can be done to improve the situation), and not passively (how can I wait), you can achieve good results. Many companies just go to the background, reducing their marketing activity and reducing costs (not always optimally), which gives a good chance to young teams and promising companies.

This time, besides all of the above, we also did not stop in one direction. Seeing that our approach, even in difficult times, gives a good result, we decided to launch the franchise of city portals and now we are sharing our experience with colleagues from other cities. It is likely that if it were not for the crisis, we would still not have started creating a franchise, and so had to “fuss” and start doing something else. Therefore, the main thing is to just start doing something to improve the work of your company, and the result will come.