The first thing to take a hit when a recession comes knocking is often the marketing budget. The common misconception to decrease marketing budgets when the money gets tight backfires in the long run, even for companies like Microsoft and Google. In reality, marketing should be one of your top priorities always, even (and especially!) in a recession.
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During the 1990 recession, both Pizza Hut and Taco Bell invested heavily in their marketing efforts, which resulted in successfully increasing sales by 61% and 40%, respectively. The businesses that bounce back from recessions focus on their marketing goals and adjust their marketing budgets to cope with changes in the environment, as opposed to tossing all their hard work aside. Successful businesses keep their marketing efforts at the forefront; if you don't the cost ends up being larger.
5 Reasons To Keep Marketing, Even in a Recession
Weathering the storm that a recession causes can strengthen your company in the long run. If your company focuses on prioritizing your efforts, your return on investment will be much higher. Even if you have to be more strategic (and likely creative) with your spending, paving the way for new leads and developing relationships with current prospects and customers is the foundation of the present situation and whenever revenue starts to pick back up.
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Communication
Staying consistent throughout a recession reminds your audience that you are both reliable and stable - and that they’re a priority. It can be comforting for your audience to see you persevering through budget cuts and encourage them to do the same. The strong relationship this fosters will set your business apart. Maintaining strong communication with your audience reassures them we are all in this together. If you do have to cut back or change things, tell your followers and customers - authenticity keeps you relatable, too.
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Exposure
If you abandon your marketing efforts during an economic downturn, you are reducing the exposure of your campaigns and overall business. Not only can this cause long-term damage, but it can also decrease the number of leads you generate and leaves room for your current clients to forget about you. Continuing to interact with your audience keeps you relevant.
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Market Share
Strong marketing allows you to take up more space in the market. Carving out a bigger share of the market allows your voice to be heard. By pushing forward with your marketing efforts your business will stand out while the competition that reduces spending misses out. There is a decrease in competition during a recession, which makes for a great time to move your business to center stage and steal the show.
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Targeted Approach
Digital marketing allows for targeted and cost-effective campaigns, with performance metrics that can be easily measured while generating insightful information. Given the ability to precisely target audiences, and the affordability of campaigns, it makes sense that during the 2008 recession, marketers spent 14% more on online ads compared with the previous year.
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Bounce Back
Getting your normal spending patterns and marketing approach back on track becomes a lot easier when you don’t abandon your efforts. Leaving your marketing strategy in the dust during a recession is throwing away all the time, money, and effort poured into the livelihood of your business. Developing an adapted strategy makes recovering from an economic downturn 10 times easier.
3 Areas to Refine Your Efforts
What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. Marketing efforts during a recession need to be laser-focused. Carefully evaluating where every dollar is spent within your entire strategy and adjusting your tactics in response to the shifting demand is much more successful in the long run. Refining the efforts within your marketing can help you pinpoint your organization’s weaknesses and can also spread the message that you are truly here to serve your buyers.
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Creating Content
The content you are putting out there can have a big impact on the results your campaigns see. Especially during a recession, you need to stay connected with your audience by relating to them. Your content efforts should reflect the challenges and changes in the landscape that consumers are encountering. Staying relevant by understanding their struggles shows the solidarity of your brand and the audience. Put your business side by side with the consumer's emotions and questions. For example, marketers who don’t have many resources to devote to new content creation can shift their focus to optimizing existing content instead.
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Analyzing Data
While continuing to invest in marketing is important, simply throwing money at campaigns without taking the time to analyze the platforms and strategies available is not the way to go. Make sure you spend ample time and resources looking at the data from previous campaigns and use the insights this generates to guide your marketing efforts.
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Outsourcing Efforts
Not everybody has the capacity to take on all of their marketing efforts themselves. Outsourcing to an experienced digital marketing agency can help you prioritize your campaigns in order to maximize your marketing budget.
Make the Most of Your Marketing Budget
Slashing your marketing efforts by decreasing your budget is a short-term fix that may bite you in the butt in the long run. The more you understand about your target market, the easier it is to reach other individuals who fit that description and generate leads that are more likely to convert into paying customers. Focusing marketing resources on reinforcing your values and maintaining relevance to the core customer will, quite literally, pay off in the long run.