Low-Cost Strategies: Marketing Your Business During an Economic Downturn

During economic tough times, such as the Coronavirus pandemic, it’s still possible to ride the way to marketing success. All you have to do is switch to low-cost tactics.

The best part of marketing is its diversity. It’s possible to continue promoting your business without making substantial investments. You can leave the expensive marketing strategies for the time when business picks back up.

Today let’s dig a little deeper into budget-friendly marketing techniques to keep your business going strong.

1. Beef Up Your Content

Whatever marketing strategy you are using, content is the foundation. Creating high-quality content is highly important for your promotional campaign. Use the expertise of your staff to come up with new blog posts, articles, social media posts, videos, and more.

Take full advantage of the guest posting strategy. Many respectable websites allow you to post content for free in exchange for the link to your landing pages. This low-budget tactic can reinforce your SEO efforts and build authority in your industry.

2. Update Your Listings and Directories

Listing your business in different online directories is an integral part of the inbound marketing strategy. How often do you update these listings? If you want to attract more clients, it’s imperative to keep the information evergreen.

Start by ensuring that all your contact details and status data is up-to-date. Then check if you’ve replied to all reviews. It’s highly important to react to any reviews left by clients anywhere your business is listed.

Check if you’ve listed your information in the following directories. Then go further to find local listing opportunities if necessary.

Facebook
Apple Maps
Google My Business
LinkedIn Company Directory
Bing
Yelp
MapQuest
HubSpot
Super Pages
Yellow Book
Thumbtack

3. Focus on the Customer Retention Strategy

According to Forbes, increasing customer retention rates by 5% can increase your profits by 25% to 95%. Meanwhile, nurturing your relationship with existing clients doesn’t always require substantial monetary investments.

Focus on social media nurturing strategies. By monitoring social media channels for brand mentions, you can discover questions asked by your existing clients. Tailor your social media content to suit their needs.

Reach out to your old clients via email. Analyze their past behavior to offer new products, services, and discounts. While these people are stuck at home, they are craving for information. Use the opportunity to share valuable content.

4. Tweak Your Website

No matter how good your website is, you can always make it better. Whether it’s design issues or content problems, you can fix them right now. The power of your website’s quality can’t be underestimated.

You can use free software, such as Website Grader or Screaming Frog, to analyze your website’s performance and find what needs to be done to improve it.

It’s possible to tweak a variety of issues without making substantial investments.

5. Master New Marketing Strategies

The world of marketing is changing at the speed of light. What works today may become obsolete tomorrow. That’s why staying up to date is always on the agenda.

If you want your marketing team to stay on top of the game without paying for expensive training, take advantage of free or discounted resources. Such companies as Moz and Digital Marketer are always offering reasonably priced or free learning opportunities.

With COVID-19 landing millions of people at home, many educational resources are offering discounts. Check out:

6. Write Press Releases

If you have something new happening in your company, consider writing a press release. These short pieces of content are inexpensive. However, they do wonders for boosting brand awareness. Many news outlets are glad to publish these releases.

If you can write the text and hunt down the outlets on your own, this marketing strategy is free. Otherwise, you may need to pay for the services of such companies as PR Newswire. Either way, it can be a low-cost strategy with excellent results.

7. Explore Public Forums

Your potential audience is likely to appear on public forums asking questions related to your industry. By answering these questions, you don’t just attract new clients, you raise brand awareness.

Exploring these forums may help you gain insight into the pain points of your potential clients. You can also find a huge variety of information about their habits, interests, and activities to personalize marketing campaign efforts.

Roaming public forums is free. However, it requires an investment of your time. An economic downturn is the perfect opportunity to turn your time into money.

8. Host Webinars

Webinars are an excellent brand awareness tool. They can be used for a variety of marketing strategies, from email marketing to customer retention.

All you need to host a webinar is a good internet connection, hardware (webcam, microphone, computer/mobile device), and a video conferencing app.

While many of your potential clients are isolated at home, they have the extra time to participate in webinars. Give them this opportunity.

You can use the live Q&A section at the end of the webinar to gain valuable insight into your potential clients’ needs.

9. Arrange Surveys and Polls

Slow times are a great opportunity to gather information. Surveys, polls, and questionnaires can help you tweak your products and services. They assist in gaining insight into clients’ needs and preferences.

Even if you plan to give clients incentives to fill out surveys and questionnaires, when it comes to acquiring information, these tools have an impressive ROI.

Planning for the Future

Every economic downturn is temporary. Once it subsides, you are likely to return to “life as usual”. By keeping your marketing efforts alive during these tough times, you are preparing to jump straight back into the action.

If you need assistance with adjusting your marketing strategy to the new reality, Peak Performance Digital is always available to help. For more information about marketing your business during an economic downturn, please contact us today.

Low-Cost Strategies: Marketing Your Business During an Economic Downturn