Marketing Strategy, News

Should Brexit Impact How You Conduct Your Marketing?

Barely a week goes by without someone enquiring about the impact of Brexit on the SME marketplace. It is quite difficult to work out exactly what impact Brexit is going to have on SMEs. But one thing is for sure, if the external environment within which we trade is going to change, then it is most certainly going to have some impact on our business and how we market ourselves.

Too many businesses may consider themselves to be in a “protective bubble” when it comes to the topic of Brexit.  Their thinking is that they deal with local people at local businesses on a local level. Indeed, if you don’t trade internationally, in terms of clients or suppliers, you may consider it all to be a fuss about nothing.

However, just like with marketing in general, it is not all about you. Consider your customers and suppliers, or even their customers and suppliers. It won’t be many steps (probably no more than one or two) before the impact of Brexit could start to have a domino effect down the supply chain. In addition, the predicted lower levels of capital investment, reduced access to external finance, lower levels of growth and less product development could similarly filter through to impact your business.

So, if this is the case, what do we need to consider from a marketing perspective in preparation?

1. Greater cost fluctuations

The aforementioned domino effect down the supply chain could have major implications on your cost base. Suddenly your normal trading margins may start to be affected.  With this in mind, you may be required to reconsider your product and service offering, in conjunction with your pricing. Your most profitable product may no longer be the cash cow in your business!

2. Drive towards local support

We may well see a huge social shift in businesses wanting to keep business local. This could be a massive positive to you, particularly if you already work primarily on a local basis and rely on word of mouth. It may have a detrimental affect if your customer base is much wider spread, as you could potentially lose out to more

locally based competitors.

3. Strength of customer relationships

4. Re-categorisation of target markets

The impact of Brexit may seriously affect one of two industries who had previously been key to you. However, the fall-out of the whole process may be that they are less likely to spend/invest in your products or services in the near future. You therefore need to work out how you are going to replace this lost revenue.  Perhaps you will need to identify other markets that are now more profitable or emerging in terms of growth.

5. Consider different routes to market

6. Greater focus on ROI

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Ian Kirk

Founder at Opportunity Marketing

Ian is the founder of Opportunity Marketing marketing, with over 18 years of experience in successfully setting up marketing departments, creating marketing strategies and implementing these strategies across a wide number of SME companies in both the B2B and B2C sectors through a variety of channels.

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