Marketing in Uncertain Economic Times

When the economy shifts, many people want to pull back on their marketing or cut their sales budget. A lot of times when the economy shifts, so many people want to pull their money out of stocks or out of marketing, or sales budgets. It doesn’t matter if it’s personal or professional, the fear is real. 

I have not pulled out any of my funds or any of money anywhere. I’ve actually been spending more to be honest.I actually hired some more team members. When it comes to your marketing, you don’t want to pull your money out

You might pull back a little bit, but you don’t want to pull back completely. Here’s why If you pull your marketing money out and your competitor down the road is putting more marketing money, it could cause damage. 

They’re going to be seen over you. I’ve seen this happen during the pandemic and I’ll see it happen again during the recession where people are just like, “oh my gosh, I’m going to pull my money. I can’t afford it.” 

Why do you want to pull your money back in marketing during a recession. They always say, you know, buy low and sell high. Right? So you want to buy when the economy sucks and stocks. I’m not a financial person, but I mean the same is true in your marketing.

Right? If we think about it from that approach, we don’t want to give up and walk away from our marketing and not have nothing. We actually want to invest a little bit more or stay where we are. 

I know with ads right now, they’re expensive and people are saying, you know, I can’t get seen, I can’t get visible. My ads, aren’t working all of the pieces, right. If you have a plan and a strategy in place, you can absolutely make it work to your benefit. I want to really just dive in with you guys and talk about how you can do effective marketing during a recession. I could sit here and go on and on about the recession and I don’t know much about politics and economics.

There’s a couple of different things that you can do today for your marketing and onwards during this recession. 

1. Market to your existing clients: You have a base of customers regardless of what industry you’re in. What happens is you already have people. It takes 10 times longer to convert a new person than it is for an existing customer. If we can keep existing clients, it’s easier to sell to those people rather than selling to somebody new. The chances are so hard, especially during a recession, because they might not have that trust and authority.

2. Let’s talk about how can we get existing clients: We need to target them. We need to do Facebook ads. We need to do email campaigns. Can we reach out to these people? Can we sell, send text message marketing, right? What else can we do? I reach out through an automation system, or one to one messaging. I can create an email campaign blast, but it’s got to be very strategic in how you do it. We don’t want to be spammy; there’s a toss up between how to really do it and what you should do. 

3. Lean in on consistent branding: As you know, I am huge component on consistent brand. It’s important, no matter what timeframe you’re in, whether you’re in a recession, depression, or whatever. When I think about the big brands, they have consistent marketing and they’re selling because of it. You have to develop a plan of how you’re going to have that consistent look and feel. You need to have the same colors of font, the personality, the same story, the same look, the same feel. If you’re a store, you want to make sure that everybody’s sitting in the same experience all the time. You want to make sure your website is consistent with everything else in that brand component, as well as SEO and blog post, and then the digital marketing end of things. Even if you’re doing ads and print magazines, it all should look and feel the same. 

4. Social Media: However, during this time you want to empower and encourage your audience, right? I’m sure we’ve all seen over the years stuff that hurts us or doesn’t resonate with us or makes us think differently of a company. Instead find ways to make your audience feel good. Let’s not talk about the economy, the recession, the shootings, etc. We don’t need to talk about all of these things all the time we get enough of it, unless of course your business relates to those topics. You really have to understand to be sensitive about things. How can we empower people? Are you going to empower females? Are you gonna empower stay at home mom’s? You want to make sure that you can really relate to them. Be thoughtful for whatever you post: do not bash things that we don’t like or don’t approve of. Keep that for your own opinions on your own time. On your business page, it should be very sensitive because people are very sensitive during any kind of change in the economy or in life. 

5. Create something different: Think back when COVID first started, I know people were super sensitive and super concerned about COVID. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve had people pass from it, but many jumped on board with their thoughts. Who knows what is true or false, right? Like we can’t justify that stuff. What I actually did back when COVID started was I created graphics that people could put on their social media page to support small businesses or COVID. It was something different and new that helped create awareness and grew my email list. It’s the same with the recession. If you’re having a sale, don’t up your prices just for the sale, you know what I mean? I can relate to these people and I’m going to encourage them. I’m going to have a huge sale because I care about these people. I need to get rid of inventory before the holiday stuff comes in. I want to just let them feel great and have a great shopping experience. So I’m going to do a quick sale. That’s another great example. People are cautious about their finances. If it’s not a necessary thing that they need, they might not buy from it.

6. Keep showing up: Keep building your audience. You can’t just stop, especially if your audience is used to seeing you as many times a week. This goes back to how you can help support people. Emotions are high when you’re in a recession or a pandemic or anything to that extent. Of course, you might have one or two that people get offended but it happens.  For example, some people were supporting Ukraine. When there was stuff going over there, that’s a great way to support it.  The emotions could be high for everybody. If you’re one of those people definitely support it and share your heart out. If it’s not in your wheelhouse and behind your brand messaging, don’t support it because you’re gonna get your audience confused and aggravated.  

7. Host a  giveaway: The last thing I want to talk about is you can host a giveaway, whether that’s on social media in person. You can even just host a happy hour. What would get people to come to you? Not only now, but in the future. If you do something amazing now during a recession, they’re going to come back later.  You can host a giveaway and encourage reviews. You can totally just do this through email: once they sign up and give you the review, they’re automatically entered.  Giveaways can be tough, but you just have to know how you want to target it. I’ve had a customer before write us a review and you’ll be entered into getting a grill. There’s plenty of ways for you to really target in market during a recession.

These are just a few different ways. And a lot of them might be refreshers. If we want to win, we have to show up and keep showing up. I’ve invested money into my team over the past month or so I can stand out. I didn’t cut back on any fees, so to speak. I know this is a short term thing. Just like COVID we knew it would bounce back. We’re still dealing with the after effects for many businesses, but we know that there’s a future. Your competitor down the street will have better results because they’re showing up more and more than you are if you pull back.