Strategies for Marketing During an Economic Downturn

Economic downturns are faced by marketers in every business and tackling them is a skill. Here are marketing strategies during an economic downturn. In the best of times, marketers have an increasingly difficult job. Driving company growth is not just one thing.  Building and maintaining a strong brand, engaging customers, and building quality pipeline are just a few of things marketing teams own. Typically, you are squeezing more out of the same budget and don’t have enough people, resources, or in-house expertise for everything you want to do.

But what happens when you add economic uncertainty or downturns to the equation? Budget cuts, hiring freezes, layoffs, reduced headcount, and increased stress can make even the most confident marketers feel a bit shaky. Some of you reading this have been through economic downturns before and understand for every down there will be a reciprocal up. The economy will return, so no need to panic. Until then, here are a few considerations that have helped me in the past.

Here are few strategies for marketing during an economic downturn:

Double-down on existing customers - Customers are one of your most valuable assets.  Make sure to treat them that way!  Consider programs that are helpful like a free education or training course. Look at expansion opportunities as well. Now is a great time to ensure you have solid customer segmentation with clear paths for upsell and cross-sell.

Optimize digital spend and show ROI - Now is not the time to spend money on lower converting segments. In my opinion, it is also not the time to stop digital marketing spending (which some companies do). Test messaging and also double down on the highest converting segments.  Additionally, make sure you can illustrate your ROI from valuable programs. Look at Tealium’s conversion API for Google and Meta to preserve conversion measurement.

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