If you stop marketing during an economic downturn you’ll fall behind your competitors and miss out on those all-important sales once everything returns to normal.
Your marketing strategy is your gateway to customers, new and old. Your Instagram reels, blog posts, campaigns, and client-facing marketing team keep you and your brand out there, even during those difficult times.
From staying relevant to building trust, here are 5 of the top reasons why you should never stop marketing during an economic slowdown.
As the saying goes, “When times are good you should advertise. When times are bad you must advertise.”
Stay relevant during quiet periods by using your marketing channels. When people have less disposable income for evenings out, social media usage sores. This is a great opportunity to maintain a positive brand presence online, ensuring you stay at the forefront of your customer’s minds.
Use these moments when your competitors are quiet proactively. Take time to think, imagine, dream, be creative, and consider how you could do things differently.
Things will eventually speed up again, and when they do, think: what will people want? How can your brand help them? How can your brand prosper after? Remember, consumers continue to spend during a financial slump, albeit at slightly reduced levels.
If your competitors have reduced their marketing spend, well, they’ll pay a lot more attention to your brand instead.
As mentioned above, your competitors are likely to cut back on their marketing efforts during a financial slowdown, allowing your industry's noise to quieten. Use this to your advantage by taking up more space through an increase in marketing.
It’s a great opportunity to reposition your brand.
Also, a 2010 Harvard Business Review article found that companies that cut their marketing budgets during the previous recession had a very low probability of just 21% of keeping up in the rankings after the recession. That’s because they had lost traction with their audience, falling by the wayside, with competitors leap-frogging them to prime position.
Don’t get leap-frogged.
Don’t let your competitors start with an advantage once everything returns to normal; be the first out of the blocks by planning for the future now.
Consumers don’t forget, they’ll remember how you behaved when things were tough. Once things become calm again, they’ll immediately know who they’ll purchase from next. If you’ve already got your foot in the door through active campaigns that are ready to roll once normality returns, your consumers will thank you for making their lives easier.
A good example of this would be the marketing efforts of Post, a dry cereal brand, during the 1920s. They cut back their advertising budget substantially during the Great Depression. However, Kellogg’s, their competitor, doubled theirs. Kellogg’s even introduced a new cereal: Rice Krispies. Their profits soared, growing by 30% during a financial crisis. And they’ve been an industry leader ever since.
We only need to look back over the Coronavirus period to see why building trust between your brand and your customers is so important.
GSK conducted a survey where 73% of respondents claimed how a company presented itself during Covid determined whether they would purchase from that brand again.
The same can be said for an economic snooze, so make sure you're posting relevant, helpful, but sensitive, content during a financial blip.
By continuing, or even increasing, your marketing efforts during hard times, you’ll stay ahead of your competitors, keep your customers' attention through positive engagement, and once everything returns to normal, your brand will be ahead of the curve thanks to maintaining your brand presence.
We’d love to help you keep your marketing momentum moving. Chat with us today to discuss what merch will help keep your brand front and centre during challenging times.