You may have suffered personally during this downturn. You may suffer more because it's not going to be over soon. However, things are different in this downturn - different from the last one we experienced in 2001 - 2003. Because of these differences, we can take advantage of at least opportunities we now have that we didn't have before.

Opportunity #1 - Better data and data analysis tools

We have the opportunity to really, deeply understand our customers and target markets in ways that simply weren't available to us before:

• Incredible, insightful web analytics to direct our web marketing efforts,
• Access to micromarket data (See my post on microsegment promotions for more detail), enabling companies to be highly detailed in their understanding of not just countries, but counties, cities and (in the U.S.) zip codes. This data can be very interesting when looking at key geo-specific issues such as housing prices.
• Overall improvements in data analysis technologies enabling more users to have better access to sophisticated methods of analysis.

Opportunity #2 - More ways to reach the prospect

We can get access to influencers and buyers in ways that weren't available to us in the recent past:

• Social networking sites. Millions and millions of users now spend considerable time in places that didn't exist before, and you can get access to them in ways you could never get access before.
• Social media. Now, you can participate in all types of online communications (blogs, product-focused sites, user-focused sites, twitter communications, etc.)
• Mobile devices. Most of us are mostly always connected. It's now possible to reach your audience more times during the day in more ways than before.

I'm confident there are other opportunities as well. I'd love to hear which ones you see that I've missed.