Just when we thought the pandemic was over, the economy starts to turn downward and we’re faced with new challenges. Will customers continue to buy? Do you discount heavily to incentivize ongoing sales? How do you capture a customer from the competition? Is now the time to slow down on marketing activities and save some money? We’ve got the skinny on all that and more as we dive into digital marketing in a recession.
Why continue digital marketing in a recession
Recession proof marketing is an art and a science. Instead of cancelling digital marketing campaigns, businesses will (greatly) benefit from ramping them up. We know, it sounds counter-intuitive. Read on for why we recommend this.
Most professional analysts agree that cutting back on advertising during an economic downturn isn’t the best strategy. Research shows that maintaining, or increasing, your marketing presence pays off better. MarketSense found that companies which engaged in both long-term branding strategies, paired with short-term market sales, we able to shake off the recession of the 90’s. In addition, McGraw Hill found that businesses who increased ad budgets during the 80’s recession grew nearly 4x the rate of those who did not.
How does this impact your business, in 2022?
Keeping your digital ad campaigns up and running means you can keep revenue flowing. One of the primary benefits of digital marketing is that it provides you with a wealth of data to optimize and refine your marketing leading to better results and increased efficiency. With professional marketing, you can maximize returns and minimize costs in areas that are not as effective. Specific to paid media ads, for example, as competitors pull out of the market, metrics like CPC (cost-per-click) and CPM (cost-per-impression) can decrease making your dollars work that much better.
Here are 5 ways to plan for a recession:
- Invest in Your Online Presence: Building an online presence has become a top priority for companies over the last few years. With a recession looming, maintaining a better digital presence is even more vital in staying on potential customers’ radar online. This way, regardless of whether prospects are looking for your brand in particular or in need of the services or products you offer, they will find you and eventually become your clients when they are ready to convert.
- Don’t Cut Your Marketing Budget: Despite results showing that companies who pressed the gas pedal during the 80’s and 90’s recessions faired much better than those who didn’t, it’s natural to think about cutting back on marketing. This is an opportunity to project your company’s stability during challenging times.Continue your digital marketing campaign activities or at the very least scale it back a little, but never to the point where you completely cease them.
- Lean Into Results-Driven Marketing Strategies: A comprehensive, omni-channel approach to digital marketing boosts your performance and results. It also allows you to generate more traffic now so that when the recession comes, you have a steady stream of traffic already. This can reduce the negative impact of an economic slump on your business.
- Continue with Social Media Marketing: During an economic crisis, people tend to stay home to spend less money and save more. This also means potential customers are spending more time on their mobile devices, which is a perfect opportunity to attract new customers to your business and nurture leads through your sales funnel through social media. Set up your social media profiles and solidify your brand if you haven’t yet and keep a close eye on evolving consumer trends. This will solidify sales and marketing alignment through running strategic paid social media campaigns to boost your results.
- Embrace Analytics: As we mentioned, marketing, at any time and especially during an economic downturn, is an art and a science. The more you invest in data and analytics, the better your results will be. This starts by identifying KPIs (key performance indicators) for your digital marketing efforts. With KPIs, you can measure how online marketing efforts are performing and where to optimize and invest, or even redirect, efforts. For example, Google Analytics provides a way to compare different pages on your website to see how they support your conversion goals. It tracks your page views, average time on page and bounce rate, among other metrics, so you can optimize underperforming web pages.
Digital marketing is not an on/off switch; it’s a flow like a river. Despite an economic downturn, it’s important to figure out how to source, sell and optimize your business.
It’s vital you optimize your digital presence and invest in innovative digital marketing strategies that yield positive long-term results for your business.
Contact our digital marketing agency team today and let’s partner to drive superior performance and protect your business from economic downturns.
