One of the first budgets most companies cut during a recession is marketing - and that's a big mistake.
Marketing is crucial for the survival of a company in a recession. Cutting the budget or stopping efforts is the last thing you should do.
Let's get to the heart of the matter. Companies across North America are feeling the stress from all sides:
- Drastic rise in interest rates - Canada has the highest interest rate since 2001, the USA the highest in 16 years
- Commercial rents are exploding
- Decrease in pedestrian traffic after the pandemic
- Rising costs for rent, food and gasoline without any increase in wages or social benefits
- Record high rates of poor mental health impacting employee attendance, productivity and creativity
- A discouragingly high number of «silent dropouts».
Regardless of whether your customers are private individuals or other companies, they currently have less money at their disposal. This does not mean that they do not need products and services.
They just need to be more careful with their budget, do more research before they buy and be much more confident on the path to purchase. A well-marketed business not only has a chance of surviving difficult times, but also of poaching customers from the competition.
In this article, we explain why it makes sense to invest in marketing during a recession, how marketing works and what you can do to adjust your marketing strategy.
Why is marketing so important in times of downturn?
When people think more about how they spend their money (or whether they should spend it at all), you have to work harder to gain their trust. That's just a fact of life.
But let's take a look at the advantages for you, the company.
When sales are down, why would you forgo tactics that help raise your profile and attract potential customers? And remember: if your competitors are scaling back their marketing activities, why shouldn't you take advantage of the opportunity and close the gap?
It's also important to remember that in marketing (especially search engine optimization), it's much harder to regain lost ground than it is to keep it.
«Economic downturns don't last forever. Markets are cyclical,» says our founder Shawn Johnston, who has experienced three such recessions as an entrepreneur. «If you invest in your digital marketing, you will be successful when the economy inevitably picks up again.
«In some ways, a downturn is beneficial,» he adds. «It gives you time to focus on your business, your operations, your processes and your marketing, and to improve your systems and strategies. When things pick up again, you can't just carry on as before. Now you have a more solid strategy to take you forward.
How marketing promotes growth in a recession
Here are 10 concrete ways that marketing strategy can counteract the effects of the recession.
1. never stop selling.
Marketing assets have the unique ability to fill operational gaps caused by recession, such as reduced opening hours or staff cuts.
Your website, your social media and your digital advertising media are working for you around the clock. The more actively and strategically you use these marketing tools during a recession, the better off you will be:
- Optimized and up-to-date website
- Active social media channels
- E-mail distribution list and accessibility strategy
- Website FAQ
- Support and/or demo videos (on site and in social networks)
- Self-service resources or support documentation
- PPC advertising campaigns
2. helps you to be found.
An ongoing marketing strategy ensures that your website is optimized for current searches for your products or services. If marketing tactics or target audience behavior change and this affects your findability, you can adapt to this.
If you keep your SEO, social media and content marketing strategies up to date, your assets will continually attract potential buyers to your website and profile. This means you can maintain or even increase your company's reach despite a smaller overall budget or fewer staff.
3. offers a platform.
Competition is tougher when people have less money to spend, and companies can easily lose out. Content marketing is the answer.
«For any business looking to survive the downturn, digital strategy should include content marketing, especially content publishing such as blog writing,» says Johnston. «Make sure you have an up-to-date editorial calendar and use the quieter times to find topics and research keywords.
If you produce high-quality content that arouses the interest of your customers, you can convince Google with a new offer and attract potential new customers via the search results. You will also receive news that you can share on social networks or via email to attract visitors to your website. If you regularly publish new, relevant content, you will stay in the minds of people who are ready to buy.
And if you can afford to run ad campaigns, these are very effective for increasing your visibility and generating traffic, especially for new websites that don't yet generate much organic traffic.
4. keep visitors on your website
Like a booming economy, your SEO and outreach efforts are attracting potential customers - but what are you doing to keep them once they're there? You need more persuasion than before to keep them.
Of course, your website needs to load quickly, look up-to-date and professional. But the same content and messaging may no longer work when budgets are tighter and buyers are looking at ROI.
A marketing strategy for UX and UI design as well as content and copywriting (not the same thing!) is crucial for cautious customers. You need to convince them from the moment they land on your website that choosing you is the right decision.
Adapting these areas to the changing needs and attitudes of the audience ensures a positive response and encourages visitors to continue browsing.
5. build a relationship.
In times of economic downturn and global turmoil, it is perhaps most important that your marketing staff can empathize.
Most of your customers won't speak to a member of your team until they've engaged with your digital resources several times - if they need to speak to a member of staff at all. Therefore, all your digital content needs to be designed to address your customers' concerns from the outset and deliver the results you want to achieve.
«How does your offering help your target audience solve their problems, and why are you doing it? If the message and story are clear, you're well positioned,» says Johnston. «If it's not clear and others have done it better, you get lost in the noise.
6. do persuasive work.
Especially in the B2B sector, people need to know that they will see results before they make a big investment. During a recession, this need doubles.
Potential customers may be spending even more time than usual researching companies and making purchasing decisions, or wondering whether they should wait until the economy has recovered before buying.
Your marketing measures can help to influence the customer's decision:
- The right tone and the right message
- Presentation of your values, your commitment and your customer service
- Sufficient evidence of your competence and trustworthiness
- Proof of your previous successes
- Demonstrate social competence
- Offering convincing texts and microsites in the right place at the right time
- Remarketing of visitors who have not converted
- Upselling existing customers
Some of it may seem redundant, but that's because even a website and social account are made up of so many small parts! And if even one of them isn't right, it could cost you a sale.
But if you have a cohesive plan for your entire marketing ecosystem, you can be the company that lands those leads and sales.
Bonus: What should you change about your marketing strategy?
«The best thing I can say is not to lose hope,» says Johnston. «If you use the down times and lulls to be as productive as possible, make improvements and set up as long-term a plan as possible, you'll be set up for success when things pick up again.
The key lesson is that the same marketing tactics you've used in the past may no longer work in a recession. You may need to adjust at least part of your strategy and update some of your assets. Depending on how long the downturn lasts, maybe even more than once.
Below is a short list of things you should review and adjust (aside from budgets) to stay visible and get the sales you want:
- Review your marketing technology and consider new tools that offer more for less.
- Review your platforms and strategically allocate budget/time to the platforms with the highest engagement.
- Update your brand guidelines and ensure that all digital assets are in line with the brand.
- Update your messages and tone of voice to address new concerns.
- Update keyword research, including checking competitors.
- Update content to highlight benefits, differentiators and resolved issues.
- Gather and amplify social proof to reassure potential customers.
- Check your website for conversion barriers, improve the CRO.
- Add new conversion and micro-conversion data points.
- Adjust your goals, be realistic about what is achievable.
- Reward loyalty, invest more in existing customers who are already convinced.
- Improve your analysis reporting so that you can react more quickly.
With effective AI prompts, you can automate some marketing tasks and get more out of your efforts.
I hope this has at least given you a little courage. The most important thing is patience. Try to avoid drastic measures in SEO and marketing, because it is really difficult to regain lost traffic and lost rankings.
