Since the pandemic started the economy has been on a wild roller coaster ride, and while we all might be ready to get off, the next dip is still coming. While economists want to speculate on when it will happen, it’s very likely a recession is around the corner. It can be extremely difficult for small businesses to market themselves and find and maintain clients during turbulent economic times. Marketers struggle to find ways to draw new customers in amidst increasing competition and labor shortages, but there are some unique marketing tactics you can use during economic turbulence. These tactics can potentially put your business on the fast track! Here are some marketing tips for small to midsized businesses during an economic recession.
1. Research Your Competition
When an economic recession is looming, it's not uncommon for business owners to go for a low-cost approach and hope that their customers will still find value in their product or service and appreciate their work. The problem with this is that the competition will also be low-cost and price is one of those no-win last-resort situations. If you're not researching your competition - and your target audience - you run the risk of being undersold by other companies in your market, and it can have a detrimental effect on your business in the long term. Doing your research will help you learn what your target audience wants and how to best provide it to them and focus on value, not price.
2. Focus on Your Customer
In a time of economic turbulence, it's important that you develop a good marketing strategy because many businesses start offering their services or products at bargain prices. In such conditions, traditional broad-reach advertising mediums may not be as effective as they used to be in times of economic prosperity. In addition, while the pandemic may have driven more customers to your business than you feel you can handle, working on customer relationships and retention needs to remain top-of-mind in hard economic times. Focus on your customer and deliver your marketing message directly to that person. Put together advertisements with relevant products/services and contact information and deliver them in places your target audience goes. Distributing information directly to a customer is much more effective than spray and pray advertising because you can get in touch with the people interested in what you're selling. Now more than ever there are very targeted, very cost-effective digital and guerilla marketing tactics that can work for your business.
3. Get Connected
As a small business owner, you've probably scaled back or completely eliminated a lot of activities that linked you to other businesses and local community groups due to the pandemic. Now that we are moving more into the new normal business owners can't fail to make use of this valuable opportunity. Use your connections to market your business. Suppose you get involved in a local community group, for example, by helping with fundraising. In that case, you'll reach a wider audience because other people will see the good work you're doing and want to support it. You should take advantage of any networking events that are taking place now so that you can expand your business contacts for the future. To be successful, you must be creative with how you market your products or services. If your audience isn't aware that your business exists, it doesn't matter how good it is because they won't buy from you. However, if your customers know you exist and know what you offer, they will be looking for opportunities to buy from you, and getting referrals from other businesses who know what you do is a great revenue driver.
4. Lean on consistent branding
During tough economic times, it's important to brand your business consistently. When you display a consistent image of who you are and what your business does, people will remember your business, and this will encourage them to buy from you. When creating your brand identity, think about what kind of personality or character traits you want the company or product to emanate. Make sure this is clear and consistent across all forms of media.
5. Empower and encourage your audience
In these turbulent times, try to reach people looking for value; they will appreciate it when you tell them exactly what they're getting in exchange for their money. Focus on what you do best, and don't try to sell products or services that don't fit in with your business’ mission or your target audience. Instead, make sure that everything you do is based on what's best for the customer, and provide great customer service!
6. Work with digital/social media
Now more than ever it's a good idea to take advantage of social media because most people are now using these sites to promote their businesses. These sites have allowed people to communicate directly with each other, and together they can use these sites for marketing their businesses. If you're not using social media, you might be missing out on a valuable marketing strategy that could be used in times of economic turbulence. There are many targeted social platforms that cater to particular demographics, so you don't have to focus on all social media, just the mediums that get you in front of the people you'd like to target.
7. Get affordable tools for customer data
It's important that you understand what your customers want and how to provide them with it using the latest technology available at an affordable price. Social media allows you to access information about your customers because they freely offer it online, and it allows you to sort out the data for your customers and reach out to them directly. Social media allows you to create customized user profiles by monitoring what people are saying about your company online. You can use polls, surveys, quizzes, and game apps to gain insightful views of what your audience wants from you. The more you know about your customers, the more you can give them what they want.
8. Use Your KPIs (Key Performance Indicators)
If you use KPIs, they can be useful when figuring out your potential and how you're performing. KPIs will show you growth in the market and where your potential is. KPIs can also be used to assess things like how fast sales are growing in your company and if there's anything wrong that needs to be fixed or changed about how you do business. If you're not using KPIs, start tracking them. Although it can be a lot of work, it's worth it because it will tell you where your strengths are and where you should be spending more time.
9. Differentiate and target your audience
In a time of economic turbulence, you need to think about how you will target your customers. You should do this by figuring out the exact demographic you want to attract. This will involve knowing who your potential customers are in detail before setting up your plan of action for selling to them. If you're not using demographic data, you're missing out on one of the most powerful marketing tools available.
10. Add new products and services to your business
In a time of economic recession, it's good to diversify your business through investment in new products and services so that people will start to view your business as a “one-stop-shop”. Both B2B and B2C businesses should consider this because you never know when something will happen. In a time of economic turbulence, it's important that you make provisions for your business to be able to survive if something bad happens.
Just because it's a time of economic turbulence doesn't mean you have to struggle to keep your business afloat. If you do things differently and come up with unique marketing tactics, your business will be able to take advantage of these conditions and thrive!