As the UK enters (another) recession and the Government give some less than ideal business advice, we can’t stress enough that the last thing you want to do is reduce your marketing spending or activities.
Of course, I would say that. But so do also several scholars – here is some articles to read if you wish
- How to market in a downturn – Harvard Business Review
- When a recession comes, don’t stop advertising – Forbes
But I will also say it is time for the long-overdue audit of activities and resources to ensure you get the most bang for your buck. You need to 100% review your data, speak to your customers and ensure you are not wasting money!
So to help, below are several tips and advice that other marketing experts and I have put together to plug those money leaks and get the most bang for your buck.
Some great tips here from The Typeface Group on how to squeeze more value out of your marketing spend. Bits that really resonate with me are around content and data. I love the tips on revisiting content and re-purposing it in different ways, getting back to basics with traditional marketing tactics that still hold huge value and being clear on your data segmentation strategy.
Marketing During a Recession - Advice & Tips
1. Throwing money at ads and ignoring the place they are landing. We see companies pay hand over fist for leads when if they worked on their website, SEO and content for a hot minute, they would either be able to reduce their ad spend or get a better ROI.
2. This leads on to, if you are not getting any organic conversions, you will spend more money on your inbound marketing than if you invested in making your website, something that can be discovered (and converts) on its own. Your competitors are 100% doing this.
3. It is time to strip back your site and ensure your customers can see what they expect and engage as quickly as possible. Remove those pop-ups that show up the second someone visits your site. Switch off auto-play videos. Swap that stock image (WE SEE YOU) for a vector graphic – they are quicker to load.
4. Suppose you have a blog that is three years old (or more); stop writing new stuff and revisit the old. Then it is as simple as deciding whether to keep, update or delete. There are some hidden gems in that blog archive; let them shine (and support conversions).
5. Get value from your content. From Naeem Alvi-Assinder – Re-purposing content is a good one. For example, if you’ve created a white paper, cut it up and reshare it across every single channel.
6. One I’d (Rich Mehta) suggest is an independent review of your ads. It can often throw up areas of improvement that you can miss when you’re too close to the trees.
7. Cíara Brimfield advises – Be mindful of putting ALL your efforts into social (Instagram specifically) and forgetting your website, email list, newsletter, blogging, and older marketing tactics that hold huge value. Social platforms are not providing the same level of engagement these days, so relying wholly on this could significantly impact the next time they update (or worse still, your account gets hacked/disabled – as I have seen countless times!). Social media is not your entire marketing strategy! It’s time to get back to basics.
8. Pearls from Darren Low– If you’re a retailer – turning off the lights when you are not trading will save you a fortune in electricity. And even more, as prices go up again. Oh, and ensure every agency providing ‘stuff’ for you passes it through at cost and charges you a production management fee, but make sure you pay them correctly and in a timely way for the value they create with their time.
9. I think the big one is massive above-the-line campaigns which cost a fortune but aren’t successfully targeted vs highly targeted social media spend. The difference is still astronomical. A great shout from Will Stewart.
These are just a few pieces of free advice from experts in the marketing field. The key take-aways are that, regardless of industry, do not reduce marketing spend; simply review what you have and focus on what you do. Or, be more like Sam, who, when asked what he thought about a recession, responded, “I thought about it and decided not to participate”.
Do you have any nuggets of wisdom to share? Add them to the comments of my LI post, which actually prompted this blog, and they may get featured.
Or do you need some help getting re-focused and a plan together? Just get in touch with our friendly marketing experts!
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