Marketing in a recession
Due to the uncertainty over the past few years with the pandemic and political uncertainty it seems that we are now about to enter a recession (if we are not already in one).
This will mean hardship for many people and many companies will go out of business. Many other companies will focus on staying afloat, reducing costs, and keeping as much liquid cash as possible.
However, there is one fact every business owner must consider; It is impossible to stand still in business you either grow or you contract.
During every recession there are opportunities, and many companies will flourish. The difference between those that just stay afloat or go out of business and those that grow is their attitude and their approach to marketing.
When there are less opportunities because customers are purchasing less or not at all every opportunity becomes more valuable.
This is where digital marketing can help
The idea of marketing is that it promotes your brand and ensures that you get noticed and considering the recession and the impact it is having on business. While it is tempting to cut marketing spend, we have seen time and time again that marketing becomes much more important and it is those companies that increase their marketing activities that come out of the recession much stronger and bigger. So there has never been a time when marketing has been needed more.
To help you to work out how best to approach marketing in this new world, we have put together our top tips for marketing in a recession.
Digital Marketing is a ‘Force Multiplier’
More and more of the marketing we need to do as businesses is a part of the digital world. This is in the form of websites, social media, email marketing and blogging etc.
The idea of being digital with your marketing is that it will have a much broader reach. Sure, you want to try and appeal to those more local customers, but you may also want to focus your sights a bit wider or you may want to get more customers from your local area.
Digital marketing is not only effective, but it is also cost-effective too. You can have some really great results from what feels like minimal effort—bringing you one step closer to your marketing goals and helping your business succeed.
Your website is the foundation of your online presence it is where you inform your potential customers of what you do, why they should use you rather than your competitors and how they can contact you. It is also the vehicle that customers will use to get in touch.
Your website will work for you 24 hours a day 7 days per week.
Make sure that you stand out from the crowd
No matter the industry you work in, there is a good chance that you will be competing against other businesses that offer a very similar service. For most industries there will be many competitors in your local area. The last thing you will want is to blend into the background or worse not be found at all!.
Consumers will be making decisions on who they want to spend their money on, so you want to be at the forefront of the line of sight (and then their decision process too).
It can be hard to stand out in a busy market, but it is possible. You need to think about what makes you different from others and then present that to your target audience. It needs to be obvious to them, at a glance, that you are a company that they want to do business with, over the others out there.
This can be tricky to do, but it is not impossible. You can stand out with a great mobile friendly website, with fantastic reviews from previous clients, as well as lots of lovely SEO rich content that will ensure that you are easily found on Google.
Have a mobile-friendly website
You have already made sure that your website can be viewed on a mobile just as well as on a laptop or computer. However, this is the time to ensure that your website is mobile-friendly (or, even better, completely responsive).
In doing so, you can ensure maximum visibility to those potential customers. Many people want to buy or contact their chosen companies through their mobile devices, which means that having a mobile-friendly website will give you plenty of chances to build your website and get ahead of the rest of the market.
Your website needs to not only work on a mobile but it should adapt the content, user experience and the calls to action for a mobile device. Having more images on the mobile version and ensuring the call to actions are primarily around calling you rather than filling in a long contact form.
Search Engine Optimisation is essential
We know that SEO can seem like a dark art and expensive for small businesses. However, it is not as expensive as no one seeing your website because it is on the 2nd page of Google (or worse).
The simple truth about Search Engine Optimisation is that it does work, and it is essential if you want to get to the top of Google.
There are well over 2 billion websites in the world, so when a search is done which matches your keywords, there will be many others out there who can offer the same as you.
Search engines like Google use these keywords to match those looking for a particular product or service to the companies that say they can provide them with the solution.
Of course, you need to focus on SEO, but that doesn’t mean that you should only think about keywords. SEO is so much more than that. You want to create content that matches what Google (or other search engines) is sending out its bots to look for and high-quality content that is easy to read and understand.
SEO is not only a powerful tool in your digital marketing toolbox. However, it is complex and time consuming. Unfortunately, time is a luxury most small business owners can’t afford especially in a recession. Employing an SEO agency or search engine optimisation consultant will get you quicker and better results than trying to do it yourself.
Conclusion
The main thing to remember when it comes to marketing in a recession is that any marketing is better than no marketing. With marketing, you will be able to grow and expand as a business.
We don’t know what the future will hold or how long it will take to recover from the mess we seem to be finding ourselves in. But, what we do know is that all businesses need to give themselves the best chance of being able to not only survive but to grow during this period of recession.
At Overt Digital Media we offer a free marketing audit where we look at all of the ways you can attract new customers and grow your business. Please get in touch and book yours to ensure that you have the best possible chance of not only surviving the looming recession but thriving throughout it.
About Overt Digital Media
Overt Digital Media is a digital marketing agency based in Christchurch, Dorset, on the edge of The New Forest. We specialise in building websites and driving traffic to those websites providing a range of affordable SEO packages.
Our services are designed around the needs of small businesses and as such are both very affordable and effective, providing significant return on investment.
Since our inception we have helped many small businesses grow using marketing leading digital tools such as A.I. websites, affordable local SEO, content writing and mobile apps.
If you need help with your digital marketing, then please get in touch with the team.
