The general economic picture seems to be that we are heading for a bit of a downturn. Various economic experts are talking doom and gloom about what to expect. It’s fair to say there are lots of negative forces about – sharemarkets around the world heading south, the global credit crunch, house prices falling, high interest rates, the drought and so on it goes. I’m no economist but it does look a bit like it could be a tough year.

If you’re in business, there is not a lot you can do about all this. The sad fact of the matter is that all we can do is ride it out and hope it doesn’t affect us too drastically.

I can already see how it is going to affect us – budgets are going to be trimmed, we are going to have to work just as hard, if not harder, for less money and whatever we do will have to hit the mark for our clients.

On top of this we are going to need to give a lot of advice to our clients on how to stay one jump ahead and avoid being caught up too much in the downturn.

I’ve always thought said that there is no point complaining about hard times unless it is going to make them go away. The only way to deal with it is to look it squarely in the eye and find a way through it. The other thing to do is plan ahead so you are ready.

To help with the planning process I have put together a few marketing tips that could just help if times get really hard.

First, focus on your product and service delivery. Is it the very best it can be? Are your people trained to go the extra mile and over deliver on promises? These factors can make a huge difference to whether or not customers choose you over your competitors and it will cost you nothing to generally sharpen up.

The next thing to remember is that you still need to promote yourself  so the secret is to find ways to get the maximum mileage out of your promotional spend and ensure you get noticed. So negotiate hard with all the media organisations you deal with and at the same time make sure the media they are recommending is most appropriate for your customers. Then invest in putting together advertising material that helps you stand out. If all the players in your category have the owner of the company on their radio ads, do something different – make people laugh, be irreverent; do whatever it takes to be noticed and apply this to all the material you put together.

Does your business have a website? How much traffic does it generate? If your business relies heavily on web inquiry, you need to invest in search engine optimisation. This can make a huge difference to how many people end up finding you in their initial search. Search engines, Google in particular, are often the first port of call when potential customers start their fact finding so you need to make sure you rate.

There are also ways you can get in front of customers and potential customers without having to invest heavily in advertising. Develop your database and use it to post, email and text regular messages. This can be done as often as you want and can make a big difference to your performance.

What are your competitors up to? Keep your eyes and ears peeled. Get your whole team to be on the lookout and if you se something that could affect you, react quickly. When the competition gets intense, there’s the quick and the dead.

Do you know what works best for you? Sometimes it’s hard to tell. But if you can put some moniters in place and ask the right questions you will be able to work out what is working and, more importantly, what isn’t. If you can find this out, you can cut out what’s not working and invest more money in what it.

The last tip I can give is to get aggressive – the best form of defence is attack so it’s all about chasing down the prospects, doing your best to convert them and, when you get them, put every effort into turning them into long term customers. But you won’t get anywhere if you don’t act with aggression.

And when the recession’s over, chances are you will have a much stronger business.