Digital Marketing Initiatives During a Recession

For months there’s been talk of a forthcoming recession, almost like how people look up to a cloudy sky and say to themselves, “A storm is coming.” Whether or not a recession is in the cards, the speculation and worry can be an intimidating time for a business owner wondering whether they should invest and try to grow their business, or reduce expenses and cut back their plans.

With the right digital marketing initiatives a smart business can remain resilient and thrive even during a downturn in our economy. Digital marketing is a powerful tool kit that allows businesses to reach a wider audience, build trust with potential customers, and generate revenue. When I say it’s a tool kit, I literally mean so: just as you have a screwdriver, a hammer, a blade, a wrench and so on offering different solutions for physical problems, so too is the versatility of the suite of digital marketing solutions. During a recession, businesses can use each digital marketing tool to their advantage to survive and come out even stronger than before.

One Example of Using Digital Marketing to Prepare for a Recession

The first and most important benefit of turning to digital marketing is that a business can use it to reduce costs. Digital marketing is a cost-effective way to reach a large audience without having to spend money on traditional advertising methods. Businesses can use email marketing, social media, and search engine optimization (SEO) to reach potential customers for free or at a low cost.

For example, if a small business is already using an email marketing tool like Mailchimp to reach thousands of pre-existing customers, but the company hasn’t ever dipped its toes in performing search engine optimization of its’ website pages, a recession can be a great time to allocate time towards this endeavour.

In addition, businesses can use newer digital technology solutions to automate even more marketing processes, streamline operations and reduce overhead costs. Doing research into what new solutions have come out in the past twelve months is a great starting point for a business owner looking to recession-proof their income streams.

Creating More Loyalty and Return Visits with Your Customers

In our second example, a business can use digital marketing to increase customer engagement.

Digital marketing provides businesses with the opportunity to interact with customers on a more personal level. Through social media, or by personalizing email campaigns, businesses can create content tailored to their target audience and engage with them in meaningful conversations. This can help businesses build greater trust and loyalty with their customers, which can be beneficial during a recession.

Put a different way: your customers are facing the same uncertainty about their own futures. Now imagine how your marketing can show them that you identify with their concerns, and your business offers solutions to ease their pain. There are a suite of digital marketing tools and effective strategies that any business can easily adopt to build trust.

New Sources of Revenue Are Looking to Be Discovered

Third, businesses can use digital marketing to generate new sources of revenue. Digital marketing allows businesses to try new ways to reach customers, such as through A/B testing of online ads, diversifying email campaigns, creating very specific mobile marketing campaigns that embrace how users use their mobile device, and so on.

By targeting potential customers with hyper-specific relevant offers, businesses can increase their sales and generate additional revenue when other competing businesses are losing customers. Furthermore, businesses can use analytics to track customer behavior and optimize their campaigns to increase their ROI. Small and steady increments in improving campaigns can build up to substantial quarterly or annual gains. We’ve seen it happen before with our clients.

More Recognition, More Attention, More Business

Finally, businesses can use digital marketing to increase brand awareness. During a recession, businesses use digital marketing to promote their brand. Those that stand out and promote themselves when their competition is hibernating and waiting for sunnier days gain customers.

This is how content marketing and SEO and be a great project to undertake when there’s fear of an incoming recession. By acting early before the storm arrives, businesses that have been making new content and optimizing it can ensure that their brand is visible on search engines and social media when the leaner times arrive (if they do.)

Snaptech is a big advocate of using digital marketing during a recession. We saw many of our clients grow radically during the 2008-09 economic downturn. When the economic picture grew brighter, those clients came out of the ’09 dip stronger than before. This sort of strategy can work.