Turn Recession Into Opportunity

Permanent Change of Consumer Mindset

Current recession is having a far greater impact on consumer spending habits than any previous downturns. With online research as their priority, customers are becoming more knowledgeable than ever - and more demanding in their expectations, with emphasis on both value and price.

Increase in online research supports variety seeking consumer behavior while limiting the scope for consumer loyalty. Consumer loyalty is declining, and brand switching is a consistent issue, even for major brands.

While slow economy will turn around, recession market research suggests that shopper behavior has undergone profound and irreversible shift. Consumer behavior patterns, as well as brand perceptions, will be permanently changed in the post-recession:

• Economic recession history have shown that shoppers who switch brands during downturn tend not to come back to the major brands (WARC, 2009).
• Consumer emphasis on both value and price of products and services is not likely to change even as the economy improves (Experian, 2009).
• 90.7% of consumers say the current economic crisis will impact their lifestyle in some fashion over the next five years (BIGresearch, 2009).
• Just under 70% consumers will be maintaining some or most of their new
• purchasing behaviors in the post-recession (Initiative, 2009).
• 56% of Americans see the recession as an opportunity to start living a less materialistic life. (Kelton Research, 2009).

Customer loyalty is among the most critical factors impacting both the sales and customer retention performance (Aberdeen Group, 2009). Still, the changed consumer mindset also means that consumers are more open-minded about trying new experiences:

• 1 in 3 highly loyal consumers left the brand in recession altogether. (CMO Council, 2009).
• Nearly half (48%) of Americans report considering brands they haven't considered before. (Kelton Research, 2009).
• One-third (33.5%) of Americans do not have a favorite American brand (BIGresearch, 2009).

New Consumer Behavior Is Creating New Business Opportunities

The tough economy is opening consumers' minds to new brands and new options, and creating new business challenges and opportunities. "This indicates tremendous opportunity to position brands to acquire considerable market share in the next year, allowing for tremendous growth once the recession ends" (Gareth Schweitzer, President of Kelton Research, 2009).

From the smallest entrepreneur to the largest corporations, only the companies and brands that track and anticipate the shift in consumer needs and preferences could promptly act on emerging opportunities, use consumer market trends to their advantage, and outperform the competition even in the toughest markets.

Learn From The Best

To move your business closer to new opportunities and stay ahead in an increasingly competitive market - you must keep current with research on both your competitors and consumer market landscape. Learn from the best - decode how top-level business executives at the largest US companies locate and filter business information to gather market intelligence (Forbes Insights & Google Study, June, 2008):

• 74% of top-level executives consider the Internet as the most valuable business information resource for decision-making.
• The top three most critical research topics online for sales/marketing executives are:
  • customer trends (76%)
  • competitor analysis (60%), and
  • marketing trends and strategies (40%).
• To locate business information, top executives first turn to mainstream search engines such as Google, Yahoo, or MSN.
• Nearly nine out of ten executives (87%) rated general search engines as very valuable - more important than all other options, including interacting with trusted colleagues at work (77%).

Internet market research is now viewed as the most valuable resource by 3 out of 4 top US business executives. And 3 out of 4 consumers agree.
That's why building, maintaining - and constantly improving your online presence, credibility and reputation is paramount to our business.

Gathering market intelligence online continuously is vitally important to make smart, accurate business decisions, build informed consumer marketing strategies and stay ahead of the competition. [eMarketing Research for Confident Decision Making]

Let Distinctia's team of experts work with you as a close partner to provide you with fresh customized insights to your marketplace, and provide you with consumer and competitive market intelligence to preserve your current positions and capitalize on new market opportunities!

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