Finding creative ways to market when pursestrings are tight is an important skill for any marketer. Even when you’re facing a squeeze on internal budgets or a widespread economic slowdown, it’s important to not let marketing efforts lapse—especially considering that marketing can make an enormous difference when it comes to getting new customers in the door. In this article, we’ll share five tactics for marketing during a recession or when funds are limited. Together, these strategies can ensure you keep your brand powerful (and visible) through slow times ahead.
During a recession or slowdown, brands can be tempted to pivot when it comes to their messaging and position, fundamentally changing the brand to hopefully capture business from new customer segments or more budget-conscious customers. Resist this urge; altering your brand message during challenging times will only confuse customers—and make it harder to ever return to the established brand when business picks up.
Regularly publishing content is one of the best ways to reinforce your brand message through slowdowns or recessions, and it’s an especially cost-effective strategy because it relies on the expertise you already have in-house. Try to develop a pipeline of content that you can steadily trickle out through the downturn or have ready to go in the future. The content you publish could be anything: a whitepaper, a video or animation, a testimonial or case study, a blog—especially because it drives users to engage with your brand while simultaneously giving you another avenue through which to boost your website’s SEO.
When creating content, keep a few things in mind:
This may also be a good time to revisit old content and refresh it to be more relevant and in line with current brand standards. Or try reworking an old piece of content entirely by taking an old whitepaper, an old blog, an old case study, and repurposing it into a new piece of content, like a short brochure, an eye-catching infographic, or a testimonial video.
Social media marketing keeps your brand in front of potential customers and ensures that your product or service stays top of mind even when spending slows. By taking the time to prioritize building a greater social media presence now, you can benefit from greater awareness and potentially an influx of new customers when spending accelerates again. In fact, 75% of marketers credit social media marketing with increased web traffic, and almost 90% say it has improved business exposure.
Active profiles on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, TikTok, and other platforms enable you to cost-effectively promote the content you’ve published, connect with users, and drive traffic to your website. A few things to keep in mind with social media marketing in a recession:
Optimizing your web presence can often fall by the wayside when things are busy, which makes now a perfect time to do so. Customers will be spending this time browsing and gathering data, and they’re likely to spend much more time doing independent research rather than reaching out to your company directly. Consequently, you’ll want to take steps to ensure that your site is easy to find, that your brand is ranking for the terms you want to rank for, and that you’re eliminating as many potential hurdles as possible for prospective customers when they’re looking for more information on your offering.
Some quick ways to start begin optimizing your web presence are to:
During tough times like a recession or downturn, customers are looking for reassurance, empathy, and connection. Prioritize relationship-building activities that help customers—both new and prospective—to develop positive associations with your brand.
When budgets start to tighten, it’s common for brands to take a step back as companies focus on their internal priorities, rather than on external-facing ones. In a downturn, this means that any steps you take to increase your brand visibility can pay off double, as the landscape is currently less saturated by competitors’ messaging.
There are plenty of ways to make sure your brand is staying in front of customers. Beyond publishing content, building a stronger social media presence, and other tactics, try some options that put you in direct contact with current or potential customers. Try planning or hosting a small customer event during the downturn. If that’s not in the cards, a webinar is always an effective and educational option for brand visibility. Encourage a member of your company to host a webinar on an interesting or useful topic that they know well, then collect user information and email addresses from attendees. After the webinar, you can begin nurturing these new contacts via email marketing.
When you’re trying to think through your strategy for marketing in a slowdown, realize that there are plenty of tactics available to you that can make a big impact while still staying budget-conscious. Think of this as a time to set yourself up for future success: building customer connections and a strong content library, optimizing your profiles, and getting systems and processes underway so it’s all ready to run seamlessly when business picks back up—and when your attention is demanded elsewhere.