No business – big or small – is immune to economic crises and recessions. Financial consulting firms will tell you not to spend heavily on advertising through a downturn, but smart strategic marketing goes a long way to ensure that your brand and your business remain topmost in the minds of customers, even during hard times, helping you to maintain a strong base and target growth when things improve.

Marketing efficiently

There’s plenty to worry about during an economic crisis as consumer spending shrinks, and businesses rethink their budgets in an effort to stay afloat. Whilst businesses may struggle to reach new clients, a recession is a good time to employ strategic inbound marketing across an existing customer base, to build brand loyalty and highlight core business values and products. Also, given the market silence that comes in a recession, your message will be heard louder and clearer.

In bound marketing

In bound marketing, which includes content marketing, social media marketing, SEO and branding, is a more cost-effective way to create awareness and attract new customers. This kind of marketing generates a high ROI for a controlled investment. Costing almost 60% less than traditional marketing techniques, in bound marketing is particularly relevant in times of a crisis as it can be tailored to cater to specific client profiles, expectations and needs.

Improving customer experience

According to studies, about 70% of businesses report that it is cheaper to retain existing customers than it is to find new ones. Companies that are most successful in crises are those that reach out to their customer base to improve experience through loyalty and retention campaigns, which help inspire confidence in a brand. It also allows companies a chance to re-emphasize their core values and come out stronger when markets improve.

Employing smart digital marketing strategies

In an economic downturn content marketing through articles, videos, and newsletters is a good way to get information out while remaining smart about your budget. Digital marketing helps measure ROI in a quantifiable way – far more efficiently that traditional marketing.

By focusing on a business’s best customers, a company can make relevant proposals and communicate more effectively about client needs. It also helps a business repurpose its existing resources to redeploy them more efficiently in light of client feedback.

Marketing as an investment

Given the current global pandemic, only businesses servicing essential needs are flourishing while most are seeing performance drops of -20% or worse from just two weeks of lock down. Whilst many businesses are being forced into conversations on how they can trim budgets and maximize efficiency, business consulting firms are advising more engagement across digital resources. With limited physical interaction, the use of digital marketing avenues becomes even more important as a safe, efficient and relatively cheaper way to get a message across.

Now more than ever, businesses need to focus on building their brands, and in putting across a positive message to their clients. The best business mentors in the world will tell you that the companies that were there to communicate and help support their customers through these globally testing times will come out more memorable and stronger for it.