Helping Your Business Grow Through Tough Times
Keeping business growth steady during tough economic times is tougher than an old leather shoe left out in a Florida hurricane, and then dried in the hot sun. That’s tough! With a possible recession on the horizon, you’re probably looking for ways to reduce spending, while maintaining growth. This can feel like a daunting prospect, but it doesn’t need to be so.
Many business owners think pulling back on their digital marketing spend and pulling back is the best and fastest way to save. Sure you’ll save money up-front, but what damage will this cause to brand awareness and growth? Digital marketing is absolutely vital to business growth, even during hard times.
Even in Tough Times, People Still Surf the Internet
Maybe people aren’t shopping with the vigor they did prior to the slowdown, but they still surf the Internet. Understand that if business slows down for you, it’s also slowing down for your competitors. Staying on top of your digital marketing strategies and campaigns allows you to maintain the customers you already have and push past others who have pulled back on their efforts.
By holding the line when others are pulling back, you can improve brand awareness, engage with potential new customers, and increase market share. This holds true whether you’re weathering a regular annual slowdown, or running digital marketing campaigns during a hard recession.
It’s crucial to maintain what you’ve already gained via your digital marketing spend. Use this period to foster trust and relationships with your target market. By doing this, when the recession ends, you’re the one people will choose your business when they begin spending again.
Tips for Encouraging Business Growth During Tough Times
The RTL Digital Marketing team shares some of their best tips for keeping business growth at a healthy pace, even during a recession:
Engage with potential clients on social media. People who have a satisfying interaction with you and your brand on social media are more likely to recommend you to their friends and family. Slower times present you with an opportunity to authentically engage — put a face to your brand, which builds trust. By doing this on the platform most used by your target audience, you’ll build mutually satisfying relationships that help your business defy the slowdown period.
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Website SEO. Take this time to confer with your digital marketing agency about search engine optimization. In truth, SEO should happen year-round. Algorithms are always changing and so do your competitor’s websites. Keeping your SEO updated also helps augment user experience (UX), increases traffic, improves visibility, and brings in fresh new leads. Your marketing team can revamp and refresh the look and navigation of your site as well, adjusting keyword targeting and giving a fresh new look to the overall design.
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Ramp up content creation. Hopefully, you have an active blog associated with your site. A slowdown affords you the time to create more meaningful content for your blog. Your digital marketing team can provide keywords and topics that will perform well in searches. New content should add value to the readers’ lives and help them learn more about what sets your business apart from competitors. Whether your marketing team creates the content, or you write it yourself, make certain that what you put out there, resonates with your current customers and potential new business.
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Learn something new about marketing. At RTL Digital Media, we encourage our clients to gather first-party data. This data is comprised of information visitors to your website provide to you. Perhaps they sign up to receive new blog posts via email or fill out a form to download a white paper or helpful guide. Gathering and analyzing this data will give you a deeper understanding of what your audience wants to see. At RTL, we can even identify which website pages visitors find most helpful, allowing us to apply custom optimizations to those pages.
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There’s no need to get caught in a holding pattern during a recession. While you may need to adjust your marketing strategy, you definitely shouldn’t pull back on these efforts.
Want To Learn More About Marketing Strategies During a Slowdown?
Contact the RTL Digital Marketing team today and let’s have a talk!
