Doing More with Less
One of the biggest challenges for any business during a recession is to maintain contact with their clients. This usually happens because you’re doing more with less, but you don’t want to fall off their radar. That’s why you need to be strategic and plan ahead.
Tips for Recession Proof Marketing
When you maintain a steady presence, you let your customers know that you care about them and want them to come back to your store. Your marketing can do this through cost-effective activities. Here are some recession proof tips to prepare your marketing for more opportunities to outshine the competition.
Mobile Marketing:
Mobile marketing incorporates short codes and keywords, text messaging, SMS, and email. If you don’t have one already, setting up a mobile plan is easy to do and worth the investment. Open rates for texts and SMS are as high as 98% and 45% reply to texts from businesses. This is one of the most effective ways to keep in touch with your customers and brings in some of the highest returns. Plus, it’s the easiest to maintain when other programs are placed on hold.
Social Media:
Your customers want to relate with your brand in personal ways, so your social media presence needs to be impactful. Updates on social go beyond products and promotions. When you tell them about store culture and community involvement, you engage in authentic ways that are relatable and interesting. This way, you’re building emotional connections and a stronger relationship.
Organic Search:
A robust content strategy includes blog posts, case studies, customer stories, and updates to other pages to keep them current. Google places active websites with relevant content at the top of a search results page.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO):
There are many ways you can boost your online presence, so hiring a professional to help with this is best done before a recession hits. A good SEO strategy takes care of the little things, so Google doesn’t move your website behind your competition.
Pay-per-click advertising (Google Ads):
Google handles over 5 billion search queries a day, and PPC gets in front of people looking for your business. It’s the most targeted marketing you can do, and you can set a specific budget for it. Plus, the data you receive from your campaign will help you understand what potential customers are looking for.
Align Print with Digital:
To get the best return on your activities, you’ll need to make sure that the messaging is aligned. For example, your print advertising should promote your website, social media, and keyword. The same can be said for your digital marketing. It needs to reflect the current print advertisements. Consistent messaging has a positive impact on your customers because there’s less confusion regarding your brand.
A Sense of Urgency
As you can see, the key to recession proof marketing is to have a digital marketing strategy in place because consumers use the internet to find products and services. If you don’t have these marketing activities in play, then you should invest in them now, because some will take time to plan and implement.
These activities have a direct effect on your sales, and, if set aside, will allow your competition to capitalize on your inactivity. So, it’s best to have a sense of urgency when it comes to recession proofing your marketing.