It can be tempting for businesses to cut back on their advertising spend during a recession. However, this could be a misstep.
Advertising during a recession can be challenging. Many advertisers think they should cut back on spending since consumers are doing the same. However, a well-executed advertising strategy can be very effective during tough economic times.
For many businesses, however, advertising during a recession can be a tricky proposition. On one hand, it’s important to maintain your brand presence and visibility in the marketplace. On the other hand, cutting back on spending might be necessary for businesses — especially small businesses — to stay afloat.
The good news is that there are ways to maximize ad spend during a recession without breaking the bank. In fact, with our model, it’s possible to reallocate or even reduce the amount of money one spends on marketing while maintaining or, ideally, increasing revenue.
Leavened helps advertisers maximize their ad spend and reduce marketing costs by exhaustively testing marketing hypotheses to pinpoint an ideal marketing mix. Our advertising technologies have been proven over both the short term and long term to increase advertising effectiveness by as much as 20%. For large brands, this can help them save millions of dollars, adjusting their media spend and increasing their advertising ROI.
We do this by leveraging advanced analytics and machine learning to identify the best channels for your budget. Ideally, companies could utilize our platform to optimize their spend, leading to a sweet spot in which they can reduce advertising budgets while maintaining or increasing revenue.
In other words, we can help maximize ad spend with our marketing mix model (MMM). This is crucial during a recession when advertising costs are often the first to be reduced.
Let’s take a look at how you can use digital marketing and online advertising during a recession to make sure your business continues to thrive. Hopefully, these approaches will increase your share of voice out there in the noisy world — not to mention your percentage of sales and ROI.
Find New Strategies That Fit Your Budget
The goal of advertising during a recession is to reduce costs while maximizing impact. If you’re looking for short-term cost-effective strategies, consider investing more in digital marketing than traditional advertising.
Digital marketing may require fewer resources than traditional forms of advertising, such as television or radio ads, billboards, newspaper ads, or direct mail campaigns. It’s also more flexible and easier to adjust as needed.
When times are tough, it’s important not to waste any money on ineffective advertising campaigns. That’s why, during a recession, it’s essential to have an effective strategy in place before you begin any kind of advertising push.
Think carefully about who your target audience is and what message you want them to receive. And most importantly, use regular holistic measurements, such as MMM, to constantly understand what is working and what is not. That way, you can ensure that you’re reaching the right people with the right message so that your ad spend isn’t wasted.
Reach Out To Your Customers
It may be time to consider some good, old-fashioned outreach. During a recession, keeping your existing customers happy should be one of your top priorities. That’s why it’s key to focus on customer retention as well as acquisition when it comes to advertising during a downturn.
After all, there’s no point in spending money trying to bring in new customers if those same customers aren’t sticking around for the long haul.
Reach out directly to existing customers with promotional offers or discounts. This will show them that their loyalty is appreciated and encourage them to stick around for years to come. Businesses can use email marketing campaigns as part of their broader content marketing efforts.
Be Flexible With Your Budget
It can be tempting during an economic downturn to cut back drastically on your advertising budget, but this could be counter-productive over the long term. It might reduce brand awareness and your market share while making it harder for potential customers to find information about your products or services online.
Instead of slashing every line item in your budget indiscriminately, try being flexible with where and how you spend money instead. Look at which channels are performing best and focus on optimizing those rather than abandoning them altogether. (Leavened can help with this process.)
Focus On Quality Over Quantity
When it comes to advertising during a recession, quality should always come before quantity. Rather than trying to reach everyone possible, focus on reaching those who are most likely to convert into customers. This will help you get better returns on your investment.
Consider segmenting your audience by demographic data (age, gender, location) and psychographic data (interests and lifestyle). This will allow you to target specific audiences that are most likely to engage with your message and convert into paying customers.
Track Your Progress And Make Adjustments As Necessary
It’s important to track your progress throughout the duration of any campaign so that you can make adjustments as needed if things aren’t going according to plan.
You will want to track metrics, such as impressions, clicks, and conversions — and, very importantly, use measurement to quantify the true incrementality of each channel. This will help pinpoint which strategies are working and which need improvement or overhauling altogether.
This method should also allow you to spot trends so that you can capitalize on them as soon as they arise — instead of waiting until it’s too late.
Advertising during a recession doesn’t have to be expensive or complicated; it just requires some creative thinking and diligent tracking of metrics in order for it to be effective and successful.
Use Social Media
Social media marketing is a very effective way to reach your target audiences. And the best part is that these campaigns can likely be managed by someone already on your staff.
While it’s important to massage your messaging, advertising during a recession is often more about keeping your brand in front of consumers. Social media marketing provides ample opportunities for this kind of communication.
Recap and Final Thoughts on Recession Advertising
Advertising during a recession means one should:
- Focus on quality rather than quantity when it comes to targeting audiences
- Look for cost-effective strategies, especially those available to you via digital marketing
- Find new strategies
- Increase outreach
- Be more flexible with your budget allocations regarding ad spend
- Use segmentation tools
- Track progress closely so that adjustments can be made as quickly as possible
- Use social media platforms to keep your business’ brand presence at the forefront of your target audience’s mind
A recession can be a difficult time for many businesses. But during those times, it’s more important than ever to keep your brand visible and keep customers informed about what you offer.
Finally, advertising may seem difficult during a recession. But if it’s done correctly it can do wonders for your business by helping you retain existing customers while bringing in new ones.
With careful planning and strategic placement of ads, you can make sure that they work hard for you even when times are tough.
The Leavened Approach
Get in touch with Leavened for swift results, maximum transparency, and more power than you ever thought possible when it comes to data analysis.
We’ll analyze your media mix, business decisions, and even competitors’ marketing strategies to capitalize on any weaknesses so you can gain an edge over them — even during difficult economic times.
We believe a business should never have to choose between quality and quantity when it comes to marketing campaigns.
Perhaps best of all, our optimization techniques help businesses identify any areas where they may be wasting money so they can adjust accordingly. With Leavened, businesses get the best of both worlds: optimized budgeting practices and increased effectiveness.