Five Marketing Strategies to Come Out of the Recession Strong
A recession is undoubtedly the most difficult phase for any business. When a downturn has universal dimensions, your business may be caught ill-equipped to deal with great challenges. You may find that marketing strategies that brought impressive results no longer work.
By CHRISTIAN KRUSE
What will you do to ensure your business will survive hard economic times? Panicking isn’t the best reaction. You can overcome such hard times through careful and well-planned actions. Here are 5 marketing strategies that will help your business come out of recession strong.
1. Conduct Intensive Marketing Research
During hard times, the available income reduces and, as a result, the life of most people changes. They change how they look for product information, how they negotiate, and how they make purchase decisions. So it’s crucial to keep tabs on what’s happening in the market by leveraging tracking studies, yearly reports, sales force intelligence, media data, and customers’ feedback.
Aligning your business with unique customer needs is important during a recession. Even if you don’t have a flexible budget for marketing research, you can take advantage of other available means like your sales force to keep an eye on your brand, customers, and even competitors.
2. Don’t Slash Marketing Spending
Cutting the marketing budget is not a wise decision during a recession. Research has shown companies that enhance their marketing and advertising campaigns during a downturn, when competitors are slashing, can increase market share and generate more returns at a considerably lower cost compared to during good economic periods.
Consumers are always uncertain during these hard times. They can easily adjust their buying decisions. By increasing your marketing efforts, you can help these consumers locate your products and services easily and buy them.
3. Review and Study Past Performance
During a recession, it’s wise to invest your marketing budget in programs that deliver great results. There is no chance to make mistakes, and the best way to identify what will work is to audit and examine past data and analytics. There are so many tools that can help you review past performance data such as Google Search Console and Google Analytics. This information can help you make wise business decisions and determine what your customers need so you can adjust your marketing strategy accordingly. If you have targeted your marketing through your mobile app, then you should conduct a mobile app review to check what went wrong there and improve it. Here are tips to help you take advantage of past performance data.
· Use Google Search Console and other analysis tools to identify the channels and kinds of content that your customers interact with the most.
· Invest in channels that are easily accessible to your customers.
· Develop and publish content that suits your customers’ tastes and preferences.
· If your customers are spread throughout the world, consider enlisting the service of a translation company to help you with the translation of documents. This will allow you to reach out to both your existing customers and potential ones in their native languages.
4. Safeguard Your Cash Flow
Your business will survive the recession if you’ll be able to protect your cash flow. Cash must keep flowing in and out for maximum business health. Of course, what comes in must be greater than what goes out. Adopt strategies that can help you keep money coming in, including adding more billable services, improving sales, and cutting unnecessary expenses.
5. Concentrate on Your Existing Customers
It’s easier and less expensive to maintain your current customers than to acquire new ones. During tough economic times, people cut back their spending. This makes it more difficult to convince a new customer to give your product or service a try. So it’s extremely important to focus more on your existing customers during difficult economic times.
Now is the perfect time to connect with your existing customers in a meaningful way. Tell them that you’ll always be there for them. Handle them with the utmost respect and show them you value their support with your actions. One way to show you value their patronage is by responding to their messages, phone calls, and emails promptly. Bear in mind that relationships you cultivate with your clients as you manoeuvre through tough times together can result in lifelong customer loyalty.
Final thought
Although it’s impossible to 100 percent recession-proof your business, implementing these 5 marketing strategies can help it navigate the difficult times and come out strong. It all starts with studying the market, knowing your customers’ needs, and tailoring your marketing strategy to address those needs. Hiring translation services to translate your documents on your website and marketing campaigns into different languages can also help your brand grow and cross borders.
