Barbara Dennis, Director of Marketing — Siding Products Group, at CertainTeed Corporation, one of the country's leading building products manufacturers, had this to say about marketing in tough times:

"Continually reinforce the value and importance of doing business with a leading brand. In these uncertain times with businesses closing/filing for bankruptcy, there's a real comfort level and confidence in doing business with a company that's going to be there for you in the long run."

Barbara also suggests "promoting features that relate to saving money and time for the user of your product. For example, we just introduced a product that makes installation up to 50% faster — and that's a real labor saving advantage."

And while price is always an issue, don't forget to "promote new opportunities for customers to grow their business and their profits," Barbara said. "For example, we're actively working with remodelers to promote and sell decorative trim vs. standard accessories. Homeowners get a better looking exterior and it generates greater profits — and more referrals, too!"

Tim Rethlake, Vice President of Business Development at Hearth Technologies, the country's leading fireplace manufacturer with its Heatilator and Heat-N-Glo brands, sees opportunity in a tough market:

"When the economy cools, builders are more open to assessing all their product and program alternatives. They become more critical of the service level of their current supplier," Tim said. "That's when our sales group focuses our distributors on selling the power of our brands as a differentiator for the builder...because in tough markets builders need all the brand pull-through they can muster. The Heatilator and Heat-N-Glo names allow them that leverage."

Tim goes on to say: "The other side of the gain share coin is to keep the business you already have. There's an old question: 'When should you tell your spouse you love them?' The answer is 'Before somebody else does!' This holds true for our customers as well. We constantly remind ourselves not to take our best distributors for granted."

And Tim also cautions that distributor salespeople must keep the same enthusiasm for the homebuilders who have bought from them for years as they have when going after new accounts. Keep reinforcing to your existing customers why they've made the right decision all these years.

Tim added two more thoughts. First, "When business softens, it's the perfect time to fire a few customers! We encourage our distributors to apply the 80/20 rule to their home builders. Look at where 80% of your profitability (not sales volume) lies. Maybe it's time to stop doing business with customers who actually cost you money."

And finally, Tim commented, "In a downturn, emotions tend to rise. That's why we speak with more data to our homebuilders. For example, our best distributors track C.O.T. (Complete On Time) performance. They can show a builder a spreadsheet that demonstrates their performance. So, when your competitor is trying to get the account by claiming great service you can take the emotion out of the discussion. At the end of the day, '94.8%' beats the snot out of 'really, really good!'"

Walt Hoyt is the Director of Marketing for Wolverine Siding Systems, long recognized as one of the preeminent siding brands in the industry.

Walt's advice in this tough market: "Focus on distribution. Continue to add distribution...and then add more distribution. The channels are changing and the players are consolidating so you've got to keep on top of it."

"Then plan, plan, plan with your distribution partners," Walt said. "Define market share goals, develop new customer targets, implement training and education for the distributor sales force and end-user customers, and roll-out promotional programs."

And speaking of end-user customers, Walt said, "Now is the time to get out of the office and in front of the customer. Even with our great market share there is still more opportunity. We have to continually prime the pump by winning new customers for our distributor partners."

Walt also advocates that marketers "focus your resources and refine your message to the specific needs of audience segments (in our case, architects, builders and remodelers). Don't be penny wise and pound foolish by trying a one-size-fits-all approach. Speak to their individual needs."

"And focus those resources on programs that create pull-through. For example, our Architect DirectConnect program has a 24% hit rate in getting us quality contact with architects and specifiers at a very cost effective rate."

And finally, Walt adds, "Listen to your strategic partners. Working as a team in tough times helps everybody keep focus, a sense of humor and commitment to excellence...even with reduced budgets".

Marketing in tough times...what industry pundits have to say:

"Now is the time to turn the heat up, not down...go bananas on marketing spending while your competitors are too stupid to do so." — Tom Peters

"I don't want to hear someone beat us to the marketplace because we didn't get out of the building. You have to get out and talk to people to find out about your problems." — Frank Hauck, VP, EMC Corp.

Jill Snyder is Vice President of Corporate Marketing for Aprimo, Incorporated, the leading technology company in the marketing management software arena. It's no secret that selling software in today's market has been tough, but Jill shares how Aprimo is thriving even in these tough times.

"The name of the game is focus," says Jill. "We leverage our technology to better target potential buyers and to prioritize our expenditures, so we're investing in activities that deliver the highest return on the investment."

"Because we track all activities," Jill continued, "we realized that an expensive direct mail campaign was getting great response from senior marketing execs, but not working with the technology audience. So, we stopped mailing to the technology people, increased our reach of marketing folks and dramatically improved the return on the investment."

Jill also advocates using technology that doesn't cost much. For example, "In these tough times, we've been using webinars (seminars delivered on the Internet) and e-mail marketing campaigns as low-cost alternatives. And they're paying off," Jill says. "And, even with tighter budgets we are planning to host our annual user conference and keep an aggressive PR effort by working closely with our marketing partners to manage costs."

"And don't forget to identify points of pain at your customers and prospects," Jill advises. "We look for discrete business needs that are not being met, then focus our sales and marketing efforts there. By solving specific problems, you can gain new customers and new opportunities."

Doug Staebler is the Chief Financial Officer of Custom Concrete, the largest supplier of basements and waterproofing systems to new home builders in Central Indiana.

"The home building market has enjoyed years and years of sales increases, and during that time when everyone was running flat-out, it's been easy to overlook quality issues," Doug stated.

"In these tough times we're putting our focus back on quality, because it's quality that got us here in the first place. Our goal is to be the best quality concrete company in the business. Period. And, we've invested in a new corporate identity, marketing program (including new truck graphics and team uniforms) to make the market aware of this new commitment."

Doug continues, "Another major initiative is team building. Each person plays an important role in our operation and affects both the product quality and service to the customer. Supervisors, managers and others on the team have specific areas where they focus to improve cooperation, business processes and service."

Last, but not least, Doug said "We've been vigilant in controlling costs. We know that controlling our costs keeps us competitive. And that improving the quality of our work will assure our continued number one position. Because quality is the best marketing of all."