How an American Idea Adopted by the Japanese Can Help You Market Better Right Now.
Times are tough, budgets are tight and everyone has an opinion about what to do when it comes to recession marketing.
But what can you do if your marketing budget is nonexistent?
I’ve written about no-cost marketing ideas before (see 10 Ideas for Free Marketing in Tough Times and its sequel or download the e-book). But there is another way that requires little or no money and can dramatically improve your odds of success.
It’s so effective that it is practiced by business leaders like Jeff Bezos of Amazon and entire corporations like Toyota.
The Japanese call it Kaizen. It basically means making small, continuous improvements and it works exceptionally well. You may recognize it as a famous quote:
The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step. — Lao Tzu
Kaizen originated in America as the idea of “continuous improvement”. General MacArthur’s occupation forces took it to Japan after WWII to rebuild the devastated country.
Having been defeated by superior equipment and technology, the Japanese embraced the idea and, in the following years, rocketed their productivity to unheard of levels.
What does this have to do with marketing during a recession? Everything.
You may not have the budget or management buy-in for a new campaign, but by making 10, 20 or 100 easy little changes to existing marketing campaigns & initiatives you can dramatically improve their messaging and response rates. Result: better branding and greater ROI for minimal effort at little or no cost.
A few Ideas:
- Edit the copy on your web site so it motivates visitors to take action.
- Find better images for that brochure you hand out at conventions at iStockphoto.
- Call your best customers and thank them for their business.
- Fine tune a presentation into a masterpiece of persuasion.
- Make it easier to opt-out. Seriously easy.
- Learn how to write better blog posts.
- Fix that nagging little product feature. You know the one.
Great change is made through small steps and, in tough times, small steps may be all you have. That’s good news because through constant small changes you can have a very large impact. What improvements can you make right now?
More on Kaizen from Wikipedia.
