COVID-19 is wreaking havoc on many businesses and that will continue for many weeks to come. Tragically, many small businesses and even some larger, unhealthy companies will not survive. But for those companies that are able to wait out our invisible enemy, I have an important recommendation that I want you to seriously consider. You probably won't hear this same suggestion from your business partner, your CFO or even from your marketing director if you are fortunate to have one.

A recession is likely to follow this period of temporary business closures, social distancing, and layoffs. Nobody knows how long it will last, but it is coming. Your company needs to tighten its belt and it should. No doubt you will be leaning on your CFO for his or her wisdom. "Across the board cuts!" they will say. "We should hunker down to ride this thing out," they'll advise. They are almost correct. You see, the CFOs who work for your competitors will be saying the same thing. Your competitors are going to reduce their expenses in all departments and, if I was a betting man, I would bet that marketing will be hit the hardest.

So, you know that your competitors will be on the sidelines for a while. They won't be launching new products or services. They won't be advertising. Even their trade show display will be smaller (if they return to event marketing at all). This presents you with a golden opportunity to gain market share, but there's a catch. You're not going to gain market share by cutting marketing like your competitors. During the recession, your business must increase its marketing.

You're skeptical. You're scared. I get it. And I don't expect you to just trust me on this one. If you do nothing else today, I want you to read this article, The Best Marketers Will Be Upping, Not Cutting, Their Budgets by Mark Ritson. In Mark's piece, he makes the case for this plan better than I can and he bases this strategy on a variety of research studies that show that companies who increase marketing during recessions gain considerable market share (that can be extremely difficult to acquire when times are good).

Take a look and let me know your thoughts. And if the fractional CMOs at Pinch Hit Partners can help you through this challenging time, I hope you will reach out to discuss your options.

By Mark Cipolletti, Pinch Hit Partners Founder and Fractional CMO

They say “it’s better to give than to receive.” That may be true, but when it comes to giving gifts to our business clients, it’s not just the thought that counts.

Our clients know we have ulterior motives and they often see our gifts as thinly veiled marketing and sales opportunities. So, like any marketing campaign, they scrutinize them and talk about what they like or dislike. I’m sure you’ve been on the receiving end of a client gift and compared the quality of items from various vendors or asked yourself, “Why did they think I would want this?”

If you want your client holiday gift “campaign” to reach its goals then you need to treat it like any other marketing initiative. Here are some tips for making your client holiday gifts deliver.

By Mark Cipolletti, Pinch Hit Partners Founder and Fractional CMO

It’s very difficult to get a new customer. And of course difficult translates to expensive. Research on this topic provides a wide range of figures on the costs associated with acquiring vs. retaining a customer, but most agree that it’s at least five times more costly to convince a new customer to buy than it is to get an existing customer to buy again.

So, why do so many businesses quickly forget about the customers they already have – the ones they’ve paid so dearly to acquire? Do they think that just because someone bought from them once that they will automatically buy again? I hope not. Other brands are constantly selling to our customers so we must continue to engage with them too. Maybe it’s because most agencies that support our companies are focused on customer acquisition. When was the last time you heard an agency tout their latest award for an email they created for existing customers? Uh…never.

Regardless of the reasons, the sad truth is that we often forget that most of our revenue comes from a small, but loyal, segment of our existing customers. Every marketing plan should include strategies for identifying our best customers and selling them more stuff.

​Here are some customer retention strategies to grow your business with the customers you already have:

By Mark Cipolletti, Pinch Hit Partners Founder and Fractional CMO

So, are you thinking about leaving your comfortable corporate or agency gig to go solo? There’s a lot to consider – will you need to obtain health insurance?, do you have a home office?, do you have money in the bank to supplement your earnings until you build up your business? Being a solopreneur can be a little scary but the rewards can be great too.

I made the leap about two years ago with no prior experience working “virtually.” In the beginning, I needed to figure out a ton of things that I used to take for granted – things like how I would create a contract or how I would track my mileage and business expenses. I am not alone. In fact, in 2016 there were 55 million Americans working independently according to Freelancers Union. That’s about 35% of the total workforce. With so many people joining “freelance nation” a host of companies have created tools to make their lives easier.

​Here are a few of the tools that I have come to rely on to run Pinch Hit Partners, my fractional CMO consulting business. Most of them are free and all of them are easy to use (which is critical since you no longer have access to an on-call IT help desk). And these solutions aren’t just for solopreneurs. As your business grows, many of these technologies will easily scale up to accommodate more customers and employees.

By Mark Cipolletti, Pinch Hit Partners Founder and Fractional CMO

Over the last decade, the internet has fueled the growth of disruptors in every market segment. For many years, I worked in the travel industry where travel agents, tour operators and hoteliers saw their businesses forever changed by brands like Expedia, Travelocity, Jetsetter and Airbnb. Hailing a taxi cab has been replaced with Uber, Lyft and Safr. And buying a car has been transformed by the likes of TrueCar, Carvana and CarLotz. The list goes on.

Market disruption is a form of differentiation, a way for a brand to stand out amongst its competition. Disruptors understand that simply focusing on price or service just won’t cut it anymore. They use a multi-dimensional approach to differentiating their offerings to gain adoption from buyers and attention from the media and investors. Try taking a page from the disruptor’s playbook to breathe new life into your company’s brand.

​Here are four techniques to consider:

By Mark Cipolletti, Pinch Hit Partners Founder and Fractional CMO

It would be a huge understatement to say that marketing is changing at a rapid pace. Keeping up with all of the trends and technologies can seem like a full time job. Just when you’ve figured out that SEO and SEM aren’t the same thing, something new comes along leaving you scratching your head.

If you are a CEO or business owner who does double-duty as your company’s primary marketer, you may not know where to turn for useful marketing information. Fortunately, there’s a ton of marketing content just a mouse click away. To save you valuable time finding the best resources, I’ve compiled some of my favorites. Most are free (but not all) so this may be the most economical degree in marketing that you can get. You can thank me later.

Hazzard Electrical, a family-owned commercial electrical contractor headquartered in Ashland, Virginia, has chosen Pinch Hit Partners to develop a strategic marketing plan that will support the company’s future growth goals. For over 40 years, Hazzard has served central Virginia with quality electrical services and we are looking forward to helping develop a marketing plan that will power (pun intended) their company in 2018 and beyond.

Pinch Hitter Matt Smith will be the lead consultant on this project. Smith recently teamed up with Pinch Hit Partners after serving as the Chief Marketing Officer for SweetFrog Enterprises and Director of Marketing for Farm Bureau Insurance.

​Don’t start 2018 without a marketing plan for your business. Contact us today to discuss how Pinch Hit Partners can provide your company with big company marketing at a small company price.

​Veteran family law attorney Christopher Macturk has selected Pinch Hit Partners to help launch his new family law practice, Evolution Divorce & Family Law, PLLC in Richmond’s West End. Evolution Divorce will assist clients with separation, divorce and child custody issues, but that’s where the similarity with its competitors ends.

“I wanted to create a firm that’s built around the clients, not around the lawyers,” says Macturk. He plans to differentiate the firm by offering pre-agreed pricing instead of hourly billing as well as providing his clients with a service guarantee. Evolution Divorce and its clients will enter into an attorney-client relationship only if they have first agreed upon the work to be done and the price for that work.

“With hourly billing, clients never know how much they will spend by the completion of their case. This creates unnecessary anxiety during an already stressful period in their lives,” says Macturk. During his 20-year legal career, he has often experienced clients who have been reluctant to contact him or share important information for fear that the conversation would add to the overall bill.

​Evolution has selected Pinch Hit Partners to develop its brand and implement a strategic marketing plan. Pinch Hit Partners’ founder Mark Cipolletti serves as Evolution’s fractional head of marketing and oversees a virtual team of marketing specialists.

Pinch Hit Partners’ first assignment was to help create a name that would send a clear message to potential clients that Macturk’s new firm was unique. “Chris said from the beginning that this firm isn’t about him and he didn’t want to use his last name as most attorneys do. We tested several names and landed on Evolution Divorce. The name, the pricing model…it’s the evolution of family law,” says Cipolletti.

Pinch Hit Partners was created to provide small and medium-sized companies with a cost-effective alternative to hiring their own marketing staffs or contracting with expensive creative agencies. Each Pinch Hit Partners account is led by a fractional, senior-level marketer who selects a team of specialists to meet a client’s unique needs. “You get the best of both worlds but without having to pay for all of the overhead,” says Cipolletti, a former head of marketing and communications at Allianz Global Assistance, Connexions Loyalty and Sheltering Arms.