Opinions expressed by entrepreneurial staff are their own.
All the talk of a recession is forcing small business owners to hope for the best and prepare for the worst. To understand how small businesses are built, I contacted several marketing firms that specialize in working with entrepreneurs to grow and expand. Preparing for a transition is like cross-country skiing. You must be prepared to weather the storm. To help, I've combined their feedback with the marketing strategies we're implementing across our business to be ready for whatever the future brings.
There will be no one-size-fits-all approach. Your approach will depend on your current situation and the marketing you've implemented. On the larger scale of the small business market, you have an entire marketing team and multiple agencies supporting your business. And on the smaller end of the spectrum, you might have a marketing manager. Evaluate each of these strategies to see how they apply to your business and scale them according to your approach.
Also see: 6 Proven Business Marketing Strategies for Growth During a Recession
Create trigger points for marketing spend changes
If there is a recession, income can be expected to decrease. What happens to the marketing costs in this case? It's best to plan these decisions in advance if you're not pressed for time. Where should you cut costs? Where do you increase your spending? What metrics will you use to measure the success or failure of the initiative? What is the potential cost per target? What is the target cost for each new customer? These are all questions entrepreneurs and their marketing teams are asking themselves right now.
We lay the foundation. It's like building an airplane while flying. Since Apple's iOS15 update, we've seen drops in some categories like ads and email, and it's hard to tell when we'll bottom out. Meanwhile, we're seeing thought leadership, influencer marketing and podcasting, and we're not sure when we'll cross the line. The key is to keep up with the marketing mix and take responsibility for understanding what really moves the needle to move us. Round strategy will consider new customer marketing, customer marketing and partner marketing for an overall strategy.
Invest in brand and messaging to keep up with the competition
Businesses grow to stand out from the crowd. Bob Gillespie, founder of Prop Digital, says his clients are starting to differentiate themselves through strong branding and messaging. "Brands want to stand out. And when they do, they want to reinforce that distinction. We've seen companies invest in branding and company messaging on the front end and then incorporate it into all their campaigns to build more brand awareness in a highly competitive marketing environment. "
We decided to do this during the pandemic. We knew the market was changing and as a small company we couldn't compete. So we knew we had to stand up and make every interaction count. We commission a branding agency to participate. They turned our brand on its head and came back with something that really sets us apart from the market. So we commission a courier agency to collect and compile our sales letters. Now let's focus on impact and recall at each touchpoint.
Related: How Small Businesses Can Survive and Thrive in a Recession
Be strategic about ad spend and its purpose
When revenues decrease, most companies will reduce their advertising spending. "This will make scalability difficult," said Steve Krakauer of Harper's Marketing. He recommends asking yourself, "How can you acquire customers more efficiently?" Focus on ROAS as your one big metric and reset expectations. Growth may be slow. So we are trying to focus on brand building. We publish a lot of content to build a community around brands and businesses. We then combine these branded ads with direct response ads. It needs more shares. To achieve results compared to five years ago and in today's market, building a brand is not an option."
He also advises: “Be smart about spending. You don't have to avoid theft. You don't have to be aggressive. You have to weather the storm as you prepare to scale."
Band together to strengthen resources
This is not the time to go it alone. Positioning yourself as part of a "total package" means better value. People assume that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. “Align yourself with other recession-proof companies,” says Brian Taylor of Goldiata Creative. Look for industries that will be less affected during a recession, such as B. government, health care, and consumer goods.”
We have made a strategic shift to focus our market entry strategy on select partners. We realized that we couldn't boil the ocean with a small marketing team of three people. Our partners need to focus on the marketing team and leverage them if we are going to make a difference. This allowed our sales teams to align on a common account-based marketing strategy, leverage content marketing resources from both brands, and increase the number of leads sent to sales. It's a win for everyone. We are in a market where we recognize that together we are stronger. Our partners have marketing teams more than three times our size. Why go it alone when we can create joint content and run joint campaigns that maximize the reach of both our brands? We have a powerful collage story to tell, so let's tell it.
Related: Why You Shouldn't Skip Brand Marketing in a Recession
Offer more social proof to increase loyalty
In a bear market, everyone's reputation is at stake. This means that every decision counts. "In bear markets, be prepared to provide more social proof. You want case studies and testimonials that reassure people that the money they're spending is paying off," says Joe Dominick, partner at Gauge Media and owner of a small IT firm. Loyalty, it's about reducing fear and insecurity about perspective. Reputation counts.
We've invested heavily in case studies as part of our content strategy because we know they'll only become more effective over time, recession or not. Social proof is always important. Find out how to tell your customers' stories and make them heroes. Their success is their success and the more you can put them at the center of your marketing strategy the better. Even in industries where you can't anonymize customers, you can still anonymize and anonymize them with the company and industry type of your choice. The idea that we can't share our success is just wrong. There is a creative way to tell every story.
Entrepreneurs recognize that we need to think ahead and make strategic changes to prepare again for an uncertain future. How you manage your marketing strategy can make or break your business. It's not uncommon for entrepreneurs to cut their marketing budgets during a downturn and rely exclusively on sales channels. It's a strategy to fail because you need both to stay competitive. You will be disappointed if you disappear from the market hoping to remember who you are. We live in an out-of-sight, out-of-mind culture. People will forget about your work. Small businesses need to find ways to do both to stay competitive. You have to be smart about that. The truth is we will not be able to do everything. By figuring out where the strategic focus is now, you can set the workload precisely so you can increase or decrease it as needed. Each bear market offers significant growth opportunities for small businesses.