With the current economic climate, unfortunately many businesses will turn to cutting marketing as a knee-jerk reaction. But what many business owners sometimes forget is that marketing can work hard for you if you nurture it and take key steps to implement it effectively. We know that it may sound somewhat biased coming from a marketing agency, but marketing provides opportunity in an economic downturn. We’re here to give you some actionable tips on how to keep marketing in tough economic times.
Marketing in tough economic times – the impact
Understandably, with the state of the economy there will be many businesses under a huge amount of pressure and stress. Some of the things they may be thinking when it comes to marketing is:
- Can I justify spending money on marketing when our sales might go down?
- Should I really be spending time on marketing when I should be spending more time on sales
- Everyone else is scaling back marketing, so should I do the same?
These are often justified stressors that we often find when it comes to business owners. However, when you take it right back to the basics of marketing, you can see the positive impact it can make.
What are the marketing challenges?
By looking at marketing challenges, you can devise a plan to make your marketing work much harder for you in tough economic times. For example:
- What are the biggest challenges for your audience right now?
- How can you effectively communicate how you help them to solve these challenges?
- How can you be sensitive to changing customer needs and priorities?
- How can you build customer loyalty?
After answering these questions, you can really start to see the opportunities that marketing can uncover for your business. You have to remember that not only is it tough on businesses, but it’s also tough for consumers. Therefore, there is an opportunity for your business to accommodate changing customer needs.
This leads us to the importance of customer loyalty. In times like this, one of the strongest factors that can support your business is loyalty. This is due to even when times are tough for the consumer, they will still be loyal to you and your business. And what can help to build customer loyalty? Yes, you guessed it… Marketing!
What are your biggest customer challenges?
As you read previously, understanding your customer challenges is the first question we begin with when understanding the marketing challenges. Therefore, you should spend a lot of time trying to understand exactly what it is that is difficult for the consumer right now. What are their pain points? Are their challenges changing or likely to change? How can you best serve your target customer? These are all relevant questions you may find yourself asking. Here’s some tips to help you find the answers:
- Speak to your ideal potential customer
- Speak to your existing customers
- Conduct desk research
- Stay on top of industry news
- Speak to your industry peers
- Send out surveys
Through these forms of research, you will start to build a good picture of your biggest customer challenges.
Tips for marketing in tough economic times
After understanding your marketing and customer challenges, you can now start to create a plan to do your marketing more effectively. Here are four tips that will help your marketing:
- Communicate the benefits – You should communicate regularly and be relatable and relevant through your marketing. Acknowledge the current situation and explain how you can relieve your customers of their challenges. Use case studies and testimonials to demonstrate how you’ve helped customers like them in the past. This is a great way to gain credibility and stand out. Finally, be helpful! In tough economic times, everyone needs help and therefore there is an opportunity for your business to be the first point of contact for help.
- Be committed and trust the process – Stick at it! You may not see the benefits instantly, but trust us marketing can help your business in times like this. Trust the process and commit to your purpose. You never know who is seeing your content and how much of the impact your marketing is having on consumers out there. This can result in leads further down the line.
- Be sensitive to customer needs – Review your offering. Does it still cater to the needs of the market? Three important attributes you will need in tough economic times are creativity, flexibility and adaptability.
- Build a loyal community – Shift your focus to retention rather than acquisition. Ensure your content is adding value for your customers and always be sure to make it personal. This is a great way to build connections with your audience. Share behind-the-scenes content, how you are adapting and how your business is making a difference at the moment. Try to give back to your customers and always listen to them to understand their exact needs. You can then adapt your offering to help with their challenges.
About us
We’re Freshbat – a strategic communications agency providing integrated marketing services to business leaders who embrace change and value marketing in a proactive and trustworthy environment.
Our goal is to give you more headspace, help you to make stuff happen and build better relationships by taking a fresh approach to marketing. We know you’re the kind of person who wants to be considered an inspiring and empowering leader for your business.
In order to be that way, you need to be in control of your marketing. The problem is you feel your marketing isn’t good enough, which in turn makes you feel confused and frustrated that you don’t have the resources, creativity or expertise to solve the issue.
We believe it’s just plain wrong that business leaders are tasked with keeping up with the rapidly changing marketing landscape on their own. That’s why we provide integrated marketing solutions through our worry-free marketing process.
Here’s how it works: we have an initial call to find out the things holding you back, we then create a bespoke strategy to reach your ideal clients and finally we implement your marketing plan for you so you can worry less and achieve more. We create tailored and integrated marketing solutions that bring order, strategy and results while having fun in the process (yes, it’s possible!).
Our core services include: Content marketing strategy Social media management Email marketing Blogging and web content
Contact us to see how we can help you take a fresh approach to marketing. Email hello@freshbat.com to book your discovery call
