If you’ve watched any tv news broadcast lately, it’s no secret that the economic future is clouded by uncertainties, with the COVID-19 epidemic still persisting, the ongoing crisis in Ukraine putting additional pressure on soaring interest rates, and Chinese lockdowns potentially affecting supply lines.

Economists predict that the United States will enter a recession by late next year or early 2024 as inflation ripples through the global economy. With a recession on the horizon, businesses and industry leaders are in uncharted territory.

Is digital marketing a good approach during an economic downturn?

To put it simply, Yes! 

People will continue to look for products and services online even if overall demand has reduced, therefore your digital marketing efforts should not be shut down during a recession. 

In fact, this is likely the most useful marketing expenditure you can make during an economic slump since it allows you to reach people who are actively looking for what you have to offer or who most closely match your target audience.

Experts agree that a strong internet marketing strategy is the smartest long-term investment you can make to safeguard your company during a downturn in the economy. Recession-proof business marketing methods are more important today than ever.

It's Time to Prepare Your Business for a Recession

If there is one thing that separates recession-proof businesses from the competition, it's the fact that they take action sooner, and start business planning for a recession before their competitors do. 

Have you started making plans for a recession in your business? Follow these digital marketing tips to better prepare your business for a recession and safeguard your brand:

1. Improve Your Online Presence

Building and maintaining a strong online presence regardless of the economy is one of the foundations of recession-proof companies. Maintaining a strong digital presence enables you to capture a larger portion of the market if and when a recession occurs.

To stay top of mind with your target audience, invest in market research, create a mobile-friendly website, hire a expert to help you with your search engine optimization (SEO) and pay-per-click (PPC) marketing.

With a recession on the horizon, establishing a stronger digital presence is even more important in staying on potential clients' radars online.

2. Do not reduce your marketing budget

During a recession, business owners must decide whether to reduce their marketing budget, suspend marketing efforts, or double down on their digital marketing campaigns.

It may seem sensible to some to suspend marketing during a recession. Spending a lot of money on digital marketing may seem counterproductive when revenues are down. Consider what took place in 2020. Spending on digital marketing campaigns fell about the same time that 255 million full-time jobs were lost globally. Due to lower ad earnings during the COVID-19 epidemic, even Google had to cut its marketing budget by half.

So, why should you keep working on your digital marketing strategy and investing in digital marketing services?

Businesses that continue to market throughout a recession are more likely to survive, according to studies. During an economic downturn, many businesses reduce their advertising budget. This is a opportunity to show that your business is stable even when things are hard. So continue your digital marketing campaign efforts or, at the absolute least, dial them back slightly, but never fully suspend them.

To keep business flowing, have a digital marketing strategy in place. If you decide to discontinue your marketing efforts just know that it will be that much easier for your competitors to take a bigger slice of your customer pie.  

3. It's Time to Optimize Your Website... Now!

Check out your website. Is it generating leads for your company 24 hours a day, or is there room for improvement? If you're not sure which parts of your website should be improved or updated, consult with a reputable digital agency - it's what they do!

Agencies normally will employ In-house conversion rate optimization (CRO) specialists who perform in-depth website audits to evaluate your website's interactions and discover areas you need to optimize to meet your goals.

Conversion rate optimization helps you make the most of your traffic by examining the data from your website to improve the consumer experience. 

You will learn what pages are visited the most, where visitors spend the most time, which pages receive the least engagement, cart abandonment, and overall customer behavior. 

Gather this info to create a data-driven strategy. That way, you'll know that any changes you make to your website are more likely to affect your bottom line.

4. Maintain Your Social Media Efforts

During an economic downturn, many people prefer to stay at home in order to spend less and save more. This also implies that potential customers spend more time on their mobile devices. This is an ideal time to use social media marketing to attract new consumers and nurture leads via your sales funnel.

Continuing your social media marketing during this time also ensures that your audience is aware that your business is still present and active online. Whether you reduce the number of posts sent per week or your advertising budget, a little can still go a long way to attracting new/existing customers. 

5. Create Compelling Video Content

Certain web marketing approaches pay off tenfold due to their cost-effective, creative approach to audience involvement. Video marketing is one such example.

Video marketing is still one of the most engaging ways to connect with your target audience and deliver valuable information. It fosters trust and confidence in ways that text alone simply cannot.

Consider creating video content that is evergreen (always relative) and will continue to be useful content for years to come. This ensures that your dollar goes further as opposed to spending more on campaign-specific content."

Share videos on your social media platforms. Request that customers create video testimonials for you to use on your website. Allow followers to communicate with your brand and ask questions in real time by live-streaming on Facebook, Instagram, or YouTube.

During a difficult time, Americans are more inclined to spend time online keeping up with friends and current events. Video marketing is a wonderful way to engage with your target audience where they spend the majority of their time and grow your customer base.

When done correctly, video marketing can be one of the most effective digital marketing ideas for maintaining revenue during a slump.

Optimize Your Marketing Budget and Choose Your Priorities Wisely

Digital marketing is not like a light switch.  You can't just turn it on or off, it is a continuous process. 

Even though the economy is struggling right now, you owe it to your team, organization, customers, and community to figure out how to source, sell, and optimize your business to get through these uncertain times. 

As a result, it is crucial that you begin improving your digital presence and investing in new digital marketing methods that produce positive long-term benefits for your business.