An economic downturn creates additional challenges for marketers across industries. Fewer consumers means less demand; less demand means that efforts to stimulate demand (i.e. marketing) are less effective overall.
However, in a recession, direct and online marketing spending tends to rise even as broad brand advertising slows down. The implication is that there are marketing strategies that work particularly well in a downturn. These include:
- Use lead management to maximize the value of each lead. Each lead is more valuable than ever, so be sure to follow-up with each one most effectively.
- Focus on your house list. Spend less on acquiring new leads, and more marketing to (and building relationships with) the people you already know.
- Build and optimize landing pages. Maximize conversion on the valuable traffic you do get.
- Create content for later in the buying cycle. Make sure the prospects who are ready to buy can find you.
- Appeal to the nervous buyer. A recession can mean more risk-adverse buyers, so do more than ever to reassure and build trust.
- Align sales and marketing. A tougher selling environment means marketing and sales need to work seamlessly more than ever.
- Don’t be a cost center. In a recession, marketing needs more than ever to change the perception that marketing is a cost center, focusing on accountability, metrics, and ROI.
Read the entire original post, 7 Strategies for B2B Marketing during a Recession: The Definitive Guide.