Marketing is one of the critical departments of any business or organization. It is through marketing that you introduce your brand or product to the outside world.
This, therefore, implies that your marketing strategy will determine a lot when it comes to your popularity. It will determine how many sales you will make.
Without marketing, it will be difficult for people to know about your existence.
How about during a pandemic or an economic recession?
Recessions have the tendency of destroying unprepared businesses. It is estimated that more than 450,000 small businesses have closed or become bankrupt in the last three months alone.
Your business is definitely not immune to economic recessions.
The best way to shield your business from recessions is to create a recession marketing strategy as early as possible. Lack of preparedness can cost your entire business. Do not wait until the last minute before you start taking action.
Below are marketing strategies to uses during a recession:
1. Leverage your social media
Social media has already proved to be a powerful marketing tool. The introduction of social media platforms has been a game-changer in the marketing industry. Before social media, companies mainly relied on print and electronic media to advertise their products and services.
However, the internet has transformed the marketing industry in a way that no one anticipated. It is estimated that there are over 3 billion active social media accounts today.
What does that mean for you and your business? Definitely plenty of potential customers.
If you want to catch fish, you go to the waters. This is the same case with marketing and social media. You have to go where your prospective customers are. Almost every business today has a social media page – where they market their products.
If you don’t have a social media page for your business, then you are missing out a lot.
Increase your presence online by being active on every social media platform. If you can’t do it by yourself, then hire a social media manager or expert to implement your social media marketing strategy.
The use of social media as a marketing strategy will enable you to reach a larger audience within a short period of time. Besides that, you will be saving a lot in terms of advertising costs.
Most social media companies such as Facebook charge a small fee to advertise your products and services on the platforms.
2. Send thoughtful postcards
In a world filled with stiff competition, an economic recession can only spell doom to struggling businesses. However, taking early and cost-effective marketing strategies such as postcards can help save a business from collapsing.
What is postcard marketing? This is a technique used to target a specific audience by sending them thoughtful postcards. It is one of the cheapest forms of marketing that gives you an opportunity to be creative.
You can design postcards for your business to serve different purposes such as introducing a new product or service, educate your customers, or pass across any relevant information.
The effects of an economic recession are not only felt by a business but also affects your clients. You can, therefore, take advantage of a postcard marketing strategy to send messages of care and comfort to your customers.
What are the benefits of using postcards for marketing?
- They are highly targeted – Postcards unlike other forms of marketing always reach the intended audience.
- They attract customers – postcards can be designed to attract and grab the attention of potential customers and drive them to check out your business.
- They are versatile – The other advantage of postcards is that you can use them to achieve different goals. For example, you can use them to direct people to your website or refer them to a toll-free number.
- Create a bond with customers – sending thoughtful postcards to customers has the effect of establishing a strong bond with customers. The cards will create an impression that you value and care about them.
A great vendor for these types of postcards is Wise Pelican, they offer hundreds of free templates that are fully customizable and they offer a mailing list building tool.
3. Sending Care packages to previous clients
This marketing strategy is almost similar to the use of postcards. However, sending care packages is more personalized and mostly targets previous customers.
Satisfying customers is not enough. A study conducted recently revealed that 60-80% of people who said they were satisfied never went back to those companies or businesses that satisfied them. So where is the secret?
The secret is in the connection. You need to create a personal connection with your customers. Human beings naturally like to be appreciated and cared for. As such, you need to come up with ways to keep up with your previous customers.
A great way of doing that is sending them care packages. Doing so – especially during an economic recession can create strong and long-lasting relationships with your previous clients. Customers will definitely have a reason to start using your products or services again.
Although the purpose of the care package may vary depending on the type of business, there are those that cut across:
- The care package is not a means of selling
- The package is for the existing/previous customers and not new ones
- The package should be personal – addressed in their first name
- The package also validates the customer as a person
4. Start/join a charity or charitable events
This is another great marketing strategy. Research has shown that most people like to associate with companies and organizations that exhibit a high level of social corporate responsibility (CSR). Evidence has also shown that most successful companies invest a lot in CSR.
That’s why you need to get involved too. It doesn’t matter how small or big your business is, try as much as possible to give back to the community.
Besides helping people, you will also be marketing your business in the process. You can decide to partner with other companies or businesses to organize a fund drive for the needy in the community.
5. Get involved in community events
Participating in community events can be one of the best ways to market your business. The good thing about such events is that they bring a lot of people together. That means if you decide to take part, you will have an opportunity to promote your products or services.
You can even decide to print T-shirts with your business logo and distribute them to participants. Those who don’t know your company or business will get curious and forced to find out what it is all about.
6. Co-advertise with relevant businesses
Co-advertising can be a good way of cutting down advertising expenses. The fact that every business needs to advertise its products means you will definitely get another company to advertise together.
It can be beneficial if you co-advertise with established brands. Apart from saving on advertising costs, you will also get a chance to promote your business to a new and wider audience.
7. Digital marketing strategies
Leverage on the internet to explore various digital marketing strategies such as search engine optimization (SEO).
Most people today use the internet to do many things including shopping. That’s why you should take advantage of that to increase your business’ presence online.
There are many digital marketing agencies that can help you do that. All you need is to identify a reliable company that understands your business.
In general, a recession can cause catastrophic consequences to any business that’s ill-prepared.
There’s no need to wait for a tragedy to strike before you can start thinking of solutions. Employing the above marketing strategies and many others can shield your business during a recession.
