Marketing During A Recession

Recession is a dirty word in the corporate world. It’s clickbait, meant to be scary to pull in views, clicks and likes. Only now, it seems a lot more real than it did a few months ago. 

If you’re on LinkedIn every day like we are, you’re constantly seeing layoffs and articles about whether we’re in a recession or not. We’re not economists so we won’t tell you if they’re right or wrong, but we do know plenty about recession marketing strategies through countless research and practices. 

Don’t stop marketing.

We get it. The first things businesses do to prepare for a recession are cut budgets and clean up their spending. Maybe you’re cutting down on swag, laying off employees or finding other ways to cut costs. Our biggest tip when it comes to marketing during a recession is to keep marketing. 

Increased marketing efforts during a recession can help you grow. Companies and businesses that continue to market in an economic downturn stay at the forefront of consumers’ minds. Once consumers are no longer cutting expenses, they’ll turn to a brand that represents stability and strength. 

Remember your customer base.

Invest your marketing dollars in repeat customers rather than trying to seek out new customer segments. Your repeat customers have a 65 percent chance of converting, whereas a new prospect only has a 13 percent chance. Your repeat customers are easier to sell to—they’re already familiar with your brand, product or services. 

We know you’re trying to be mindful of costs. Remember, targeting new customers will likely cost you more too. On average, it costs 16 times more to get new customers on the same spending level as it does current ones and costs five times more to acquire them. 

Your repeat customers also refer 50 percent more people than your one-and-done buyers and spend nearly 67 percent more than new customers.

Don’t put all your eggs in one basket.

Whether marketing during a recession or not, always, always, always divide your marketing and advertising efforts. Don’t throw all your money at just one category. 

We recommend splitting your budget between search ads, display ads, programmatic marketing, your website, brand publishing, traditional marketing and social media. You’ll want to roughly divide your efforts evenly, with anywhere from 10-15 percent of your budget on each. 

Focus your attention on channels that perform well and reallocate accordingly. 

Invest in long-term marketing tactics. 

You want your business to outlast others that are performing poorly during a recession. One of the easiest ways to do this is to invest in a long-term marketing strategy that may not produce revenue-centric results right away but has the potential to be rewarding over the course of five to 10 years. 

SEO, for example, is a long-term investment and, while it does take time to grow, the results are worth it. Adding new strategic content or blogs maintains the relevancy of your website and can help you climb to the first page in search results—and stay there, unlike paid search ads, which will lose their ranking when the campaign ends. 

Long-term marketing often includes social media, SEO, public relations and your company’s website. These tools keep your brand fresh and at the forefront of your customer’s minds. When long-term marketing improves upon your existing messaging, you can determine what works best for you and optimize leads and conversions. 

We know marketing during a recession is scary. Every step you take to prepare your business for the future brings you one step closer to stellar growth. 

Marketing during a downturn can lead to countless opportunities down the road. If you’re interested in learning more about our marketing services or our new SEO packages, schedule a consultation with us today and optimize your marketing budget.