For a lot of businesses in the UK and worldwide, now probably feels natural to be focusing on surviving as opposed to thriving. A lot of businesses are in fight or flight mode. The pandemic has affected us in many ways, and even with government and community support, it will take a while for things to recover back to their normal state. In the meantime this means businesses are making cutbacks to save on costs and focusing on seeing this tough period through. After all, spending more in a challenging economic environment, such as the one we are all experiencing now, does not make good economic sense, and usually, the first thing that companies will cut back on is Marketing.

However, now is actually the time to make a concerted effort with your marketing.

What?!

Study after study after study—over decades and through several recessions—has found that when times are tough, marketing is actually more important than before, not less.  Why? Because marketing drives long term revenue, and avoiding it will only prolong your business problems later down the line. 

A recent ThinkVine report showed that cutting marketing spending during a recession resulted in a 20% reduction in sales by the end of the year. There’s an adage that captures this well: “If sales are your problem today, marketing was your problem 12 months ago”, and this will be the unfortunate truth for many businesses in 12 months time, who are ignoring their marketing efforts right now.

If you can, milk the benefits of marketing during a recession.

Cutting back on your marketing budget can entail some problems. But, those who increase their marketing spend will reap even more benefits.

“Often times when a recession happens, businesses, fearful of declining revenue, begin to cut back in various areas, including their ad spend… Nonetheless, those advertisers that maintained or grew their ad spending increased sales and market share during the recession and afterwards.” 

Marketing during a recession is an opportunity, and is more effective than usual. This is for a number of reasons, but predominantly because there is a bigger advertising space as most competitors will be (wrongly) cutting back. Now’s your chance to get ahead. Where there usually would be 100s of competitors pushing to get to your target audience, during a recession there may only be 20. Not only does this mean that advertising costs are lower because of the lack of demand, but you have much higher exposure to your clients. 

Continuing your current marketing efforts could now see your results tripled, and once we’re out of the tunnel your competitors will be fighting hard and spending more to catch up with you!

Plan of action

So what does this mean for you? You may not be able to warrant paying agency fees for a captivating marketing campaign, but now is not the time to cut back on marketing all together. We’ve put a list together to help you get ahead of your competitors and make the most of this recession.

1. Keep your customers informed.

Let them know what you’re up to on social media, send them e-mails to remind them you still exist, and write blogs about things you have done or learnt during the pandemic that may be useful to them.

1. Start ecommerce (if you haven’t already)

If anything, COVID-19 has just catalysed the shift to digital. If your business doesn’t offer an online service you’re getting left behind. If you need help with an e-commerce solution for your website, give us a no-obligation call today!

1. Start a social media campaign or giveaway

If you are able to do a giveaway of items, or a voucher of your choice, then do it. Giveaways not only allow customers to keep interacting with your brand but they encourage exposure to new potential customers.

1. Focus your efforts on clarifying your message

You have the time now, so why not try to make use of this time to set yourself up in a great position for when we return to normality? 

 

Now is the opportunity to get the best ROI for your marketing.