In Tough Economic Times, Continue to Play the Long Game
During tough times, stopping your marketing and advertising activities is tempting as a quick way to save money. We hear you but strongly disagree. Why? Success in troubled times requires delivering trustworthy brand value.
You've worked hard to create awareness and build brand equity, and your customers and clients have come to expect certain things from you. What will your clients or customers think if you suddenly disappear after having an active social or communications strategy?
Drastic cuts = short-term thinking. Play the long game.
💸 Don't take away much-needed resources. You will leave employees resentful (causing a possible HR headache down the road) and loyal customers stranded (or worse, switching to more appealing competitor outreach).
💸 Pivot, don't stop. Lead the way in your industry. Continuing successful marketing programs shows confidence and resilience, creating longer-term trust in the market and with clients.
💸 Use marketing programs to evaluate user/customer behaviors. What do they do when times get tough? How can you help them through it? What do you offer that benefits this moment? If you don't have something, can you easily create it?
If you have to make cuts, do this strategically. It should be a team effort to ensure everyone with projects at stake decides together.
Start by asking the team to independently review and rank all of your current marketing activities. Ask them, wherever possible, to support their decisions with data, analytics, and storytelling.
Then meet as a group to run through the results. You can use a whiteboard or sticky notes with project names on them to help with the ranking. It makes a great visual for participants.
Align on the direction. Consider the timeline or milestones that must be met to restart any paused activities or raise spending back to previous levels.
Things to consider:
Do you have marketing efforts that bring in revenue to the company? Have you made specific promises to your audience (i.e., a monthly newsletter or weekly blog post)? Are they subscription-based services? Are there vanity projects or nice-to-haves that haven't gotten traction?
As always, if you're unsure how to manage your brand or marketing strategy, we're here. We can help with everything from ideation to execution.