The game has changed radically. And I know one thing for sure: Companies that find ways to thrive in this bleak economic winter will be the ones that get the information they need to adapt quickly to the constantly changing conditions—and profit from them.

How can you make sure YOUR business is among them? By using surveys to get the information you need on who’s buying, who’s likely to buy, what they want to buy, how you find those people, and how you convince them to buy YOUR products or services.

The simple fact is, you can’t assume that your customer base will look the same six months, or maybe even six weeks from now, as it did six months ago. The changed economic climate has changed everything—including who can buy and who can’t.

Which means information from surveys is absolutely critical. Surveys can tell you, for example,

• Where your customers live—so you know what % lies in regions that have been hit hardest by the downturn (because the differences across regions are huge);

• How old your customers are—because certain age groups have been hit much harder than others;

• What kind of business or employment they’re in—because some industries have been devastated recently, while others have actually grown;

Having this information is critical to figuring out how to profit from this recession.

Not sure what to do?  Here’s one of the questions you should ask yourself right now: Do I know what % of my customer base is in some of the hardest-hit regions, like Arizona, California, Florida, Michigan, and Nevada? The effect of the downturn on your business, and on the decisions you make, will be very different if 5% of your customers come from these areas than if 50% live there.

As a new McKinsey Quarterly report states, “To weather the storm, it will be necessary to identify anew who and where the profitable customers are and to prioritize the most effective marketing and sales vehicles for reaching them.”

In other words, you have to know such things as

• what % of your customers are in areas or demographic groups that are likely to cut spending dramatically,

• how to attract customers who are better off, and

• how to market effectively to both groups.

Many companies “get it” already, so much so that they’ve GOT the information they need. For example, one survey showed huge variations in customer demand for a beverage company’s products across “micromarkets”—small (sometimes REALLY small) geographic areas. The size of the differences was staggering: Demand was 13 times higher in some regions than other regions, 5 times higher in some cities than other cities, and 3 times higher IN SOME ZIP CODES than in others.

Although this survey was done by a “brick and mortar” company, this strategy is at least as important and effective for online marketers.

For example, if you know where your customers live, you can segment your list and offer special marketing messages, incentives, discounts, and programs for people in harder-hit areas with greater price sensitivity.

The same holds with demographic groups. Suppose your niche is the dog market, where many customers are older women. If that’s the case, you may need to offer special pricing and incentives for this hard-hit group.

In a niche that sells high-end products to affluent young professionals? Lots of those folks are (or were) in financial services. Ouch. What to do? If you KNOW a good chunk of your customer base is there, market other goods, products, or services to them now—things that help them save money, cut costs, or increase their incomes, for example.

Boomers have pumped lots of money into lots of markets for years. But their freewheeling spending was often fueled by borrowing against home equity. As that equity goes down and credit markets stay tight, their purse strings will also tighten.

What will boomers cut? A 2006 survey asked them where they would make cuts if they had to drop their overall spending by 20%. Travel, furniture, and clothing were the things mentioned most. But even if those products won’t sell well, programs and information products that help them “do more with less,” by finding these items at lower cost or by helping them start businesses that produce an additional income stream, MAY sell well.

The bottom line, then, is that NOW MORE THAN EVER, you need to know who your customers are, where they are, what they want. You also need to generate as many referrals as possible, to get more qualified prospects into your funnel.

Simply put, the things that worked six months ago probably won’t work six months from now. Use surveys to get the information you need to survive and thrive.

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