10 great ways to avoid growing your business in 2012

Let’s hope it is your competitor, rather than you, that has made these strategic choices that can limit sales growth in 2012

1.   Don’t seek fresh consumer insights—you know a lot about your consumer already.  Why waste money getting fresh insights when consumer purchase behavior has changed in most categories in the last couple years.  Maybe the impact of the economy, ecommerce, social media, smartphones, etc. have not really changed the way your consumers think and shop.

2.   Don’t update your website—Websites cost money to update.  Your current online brochure of a website should be good enough for another year.  So your competitors have interactive websites with regular fresh content and aggressively sell their products through their website and/or multiple web partners.  You do not need to worry about integrating fresh content, social media or ecommerce.  You haven’t seen any proof that your website sells product.  Why invest more?

3.   Don’t go mobile—Sure a lot of people have smartphones.  But they mostly seem to be used for email, texting or checking Facebook.  You do not need to spend money this year making sure consumers can access your website or buy your product on a smartphone.  So what that 38% of consumers have made at least one purchase on their smartphone…that does not affect your products.

4.   Don’t worry about SEO—why spend money optimizing your search engine performance.  If you search your company’s name they can find you—even if you have to scroll down to find your listing.  You do not need to worry about any other kind of category search terms.  It does not matter that you come up on page 3 of a Google search and over 90% of consumers click through the listings on just the first page.  If someone really wants to find you, they will be willing to do the work rather than choose your competitor who is easier to find.

5.   Extend your advertising another year—Consumers loved your advertising when it launched.  You saw a nice sales bump.  So it makes sense to continue to run that same great advertising for another year or three.  It does not matter that consumers thought your ad was funny at first, but now the humor is stale—or that your message has less impact in light of your competitor’s new product and ads.  New advertising is expensive, so let’s stretch the current campaign for one more year.

6.   Assume your packaging is good enough—At least you do not need to worry about updating your packaging communication.  You tend to update your packaging couple years or when you have a new brand manager.  There is no need to freshen up your communication to educate shoppers or make sure your packaging is more engaging than your competitor. 

7.   Go with the same shopper marketing strategy this year—your promotions and in store communication worked well last year.  You are up against those sales numbers again this year.  It is safe to assume you can get the same results or better from repeating last year’s promotions and in store communication.  There is no need to engage your shopper in new ways this year.

8.   Don’t expect your competitors to innovate—in this economy, it is best to cut back and survive the downturn rather than risk investing in the future.  Everyone is affected, so your competitor will not innovate if you do not.  After all, you are the category leader.  When the market starts to rebound, you can begin to reinvest in the future.  Your competitor is sure to follow your lead.

9.   Sell only on price—with this economy, why give your consumers a reason to buy other than price.  A good enough product at a good enough price may be a good enough strategy to reach a good enough sales goal. 

10. Cut your marketing budget (again)—your competitors have been limiting their marketing spend so you can save money too.  After all, marketing spending is just a cost, not a strategic investment.  Who wants to gain share in a down market by outmarketing their competition.  And, if you time your budget cuts just right, you can reduce your spending and your sales.

These are great ways to avoid growing a business this year.  If some of these are in your company’s 2012 plan, consider another approach—but only if you want to accelerate your sales in the New Year.

GrowthSpring Group is a market research, marketing strategy and innovation firm focused on accelerating your sales and profit growth. We help you identify new business growth insights & opportunities and execute winning strategies & plans. www.GrowthSpringGroup.com