During an economic downturn, one of the worst things you can do as a marketer is decrease your budget. This seems counterintuitive, but marketing budgets are typically some of the first to get the chop during a recession, but you have a real opportunity to be a prominent voice while your competitors are quiet. Emphasizing trust will be a strong approach with B2B marketing. Trust is a result of consistency, reliability, and intimacy between a customer and a business so your campaigns should take advantage of these sentiments during uncertain times. Being a reliable partner that can offer some stability to the businesses you serve can make you more valuable, and help increase your market share as your competitors cut their marketing initiatives overall. Communicate and update more than usual, so customers are in the loop. This goes a long way, and again helps build trust. This is also an ideal time to do research and publish results, adding to your authority with customers and leads.
If you've focused on a specific segment for a while and have a strong market share there, you may be able to weather the storm better than your competitors who are more diversified. This is because during an economic downturn, customers in different segments may react differently. However, you may also want to look for opportunities to expand your business into new markets or segments where you may be able to gain a greater share of the market. This can help you to offset any losses in other areas and keep your business growing. There may be some areas where your competitors are cutting back on their marketing efforts, giving you a chance to increase your visibility and market share.
One strategy is to get those who have so far been opposed or reluctant to use a tech business to try them out. Many small businesses are not online, don't use tech to market, and are overall adverse to technology because those business owners don't understand how to use it to gain customers and revenue. If a tech company can offer something free, like a preview of a website or a marketing plan that shows they will generate more revenue, to those customers they can win them over in an economic downturn. Remember, these businesses are concerned about their financial future too. A tech company that can provide them with more ROI will win them over in a heartbeat. Finally, a good attorney will make sure you are personally protected. Many people will try to scam a new business in various ways from trying to sell you something you don't need, to filing a false claim, to filing a lawsuit, to even filing against your personal credit. An attorney can help you avoid these traps.
During an economic downturn, businesses can't afford to burn money on ads or pay expensive influencers. One strategy that will help business get high ROI, at low cost while building a loyal customer base is: email marketing. Email marketing helps you send targeted messages, track your metrics and create direct line of communication with your customers. The benefits of email marketing are multifold (https://www.sendx.io/blog/death-of-email). Infact, you can automate most of it if you can't afford a big marketing team during downturn.
CEO at Profit Frog
Answered 4 years ago
An inexpensive and effective marketing strategy is user generated content. This is nothing more than taking advantage of your past clients’ positive reviews as part of your content, to get more traction and potential customer’s attention. Simply describing how amazing your product is will no longer be enough. Potential customers want real life experience. They want validation that what they're about to buy is in fact, a great purchase. Promoting your positive reviews can be a game changer when it comes to lead generation. This strategy is also free if you’re just using social media, or even including them on a sales page.
Tailoring messaging to address the current fears and needs of your audience is critical during shifting economic times. Providing relevant and timely information helps you resonate with what’s top of mind while avoiding coming across as tone-deaf. Start by paying attention to the words your customers use to describe their pain points, objections, and worries because those are the exact phrases to use as hook points in your communication. Increase your business’ market share by doing your part to ensure your audience consistently feels understood and supported.
Explore the monetizing potential of your content by tapping into the power of podcasting, especially during an economic downturn. There is no doubt your B2B tech business can make a good amount of money, as many solid podcasting strategies can help you diversify your revenue streams while reaching a broader audience. One popular method to earn income from podcasting is through sponsorships. When you create content about your products and services, allocate time slots to promote your sponsors. Think of a TV show where they have to insert a commercial at the start, middle, or end of every episode. That's basically the same thing with podcasting. Plus, it's pretty lucrative, considering each sponsor pays at least $50 per one thousand downloads for a single episode. Once you accumulate enough funds, you can then capitalize on your marketing efforts to expand your market share.
After months of pondering, we realized that stabilization is the best way to endure a recession. It can be hard to justify the act of increasing the budget in times of uncertainty. An effective strategy is to find “extra cash flow” in less functional business operations. For example, during the pandemic, many businesses including ours were forced to delay any travel plans and in-person events. Instead, the focus was on finding ways to allocate the travel funds to trade shows. This proved to be easy in boosting cash flow and adding immediate value to areas where engagements were low. We were also adamant about keeping tabs on the competition. This is an effective strategy as customer needs shift during a recession. It's helpful to follow these changes to keep the business growing.
When the economy is suffering, maximizing the return on your advertising dollar is more important than ever, and a specialized landing page is the best way to turn a visitor into a client. An optimized landing page can often double conversions vs. sending clicks to the home page, which means you will greatly increase the leads for every advertising dollar you spend. When your ads bring a potential customer to a specialized landing page, it makes it much easier for them to reach out to you and begin the steps to becoming a client.
During a downturn, positioning your business for recovery can help build trust among your customers. You may have to stop with direct selling and use empathetic messaging to demonstrate the "we're all in this together" spirit. Using reassuring messages in your marketing can build up an emotional connection with your brand. Often, hard-hit businesses would focus hard on selling to recover their losses, which results in insensitive marketing. Instead, this is the time to step back and focus on what value add you can offer to your customers. Genuine efforts to be helpful to your customers can nurture your relationships with them.
Invest in data-driven insights: To better understand the needs of your target market and the most acceptable marketing tactics that will boost your branding and sales significantly, use data collection and tracking tools like Google Analytics. These statistics can be handy both before and during an economic crisis. So begin your research and consider the consistency of your sales statistics and consumer trends. Knowing your consumers' needs is essential to understanding how their preferences may change if the economy falters. Despite the difficult circumstances, your business may use this knowledge to develop marketing tactics that offer value to your clients and meet their needs. Utilize the best marketing strategies that are recession-proof, then pinpoint the most effective campaigns and keep utilizing them to drive sales throughout the downturn.
During an economic crisis, it is essential to focus on your most loyal and valuable customers. These are the customers who will continue doing business with you even when times are tough. Identify your top customers who generate a large percentage of your revenue and implement strategies to keep them engaged with your brand. You can reel them in by offering them loyalty programs, personalized services, or exclusive discounts and deals. Keeping your core customers happy should be a priority during an economic downturn as they will help keep your business afloat.
Investing in content marketing. As the economy slows, businesses have less money to spend on advertising and marketing. However, that doesn’t mean they stop trying to attract new customers. Instead of investing in paid advertising, many businesses focus on content marketing. Content marketing is an investment in your company’s brand, but it doesn’t require a large upfront investment.
In times of economic downturn, people don't like to spend money if they don't have to. If you want to win over your competition, you need to show you potential clients that your product or service actually saves money. It's even better if you can be specific and calculate monthly savings. Compare yourself to your more expensive competition or show how much money is wasted by your audience's common but ineffective practices. Switch the perspective from showing how much your solution costs into how much it can save and it will bring you customers.
One marketing strategy that B2B tech businesses can turn to increase their market share during an economic downturn is content marketing. Content marketing involves creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly defined audience — and, ultimately, to drive profitable customer action. When done well, content marketing can help businesses to build trust and credibility, differentiate their products and services, generate leads, and boost sales. What’s more, content marketing is relatively low-cost — making it a particularly attractive option for businesses looking to tighten their belts in tough economic times. If you’re thinking about using content marketing to grow your B2B tech business, now is the time to get started.
Businesses buy from other businesses with the end goal of making more money. They source from businesses that their clients or consumers need products or services from. The way that B2B tech businesses can stay in business and prosper despite the market share during an economic downturn is by staying relevant. Relevance has a direct relationship with convenience. The world has evolved because people always look for more convenient ways to get things done. B2B tech businesses can get disruptive or pivot. They can expand and be innovative. There’s so many options provided it serves the goal of improving customer convenience.
Offering a free trial allows potential new customers to understand more about your offering. Incentives are always a great way to keep users onsite. But offering a discount to every existing visitor can lower your product's perceived value and impact your profit margins. A free trial offer helps prospects learn how your software solution can help them overcome their challenges, turning qualified leads into new customers. We also find that skipping the hard sell lets you build a relationship with your customer while building trust with your brand
One way to increase market share during an economic downturn is to write case studies that show your expertise. We often use case studies as marketing tools because case studies lay out, step by step, your success in helping other businesses solve their challenges. You can use them to illustrate how your business will tailor your products or services to meet the specific needs of different customers and industries. And case studies are an effective tool in B2B marketing for building trust between businesses and their customers. That trust will increase your market share.
A B2B company can buy one of its smaller competitors thereby directly capturing their market share. By acquiring an existing player in the market, the buyer can also capitalize on their existing product lines and ongoing marketing efforts. Plus, with increased headcount, the company can also gear towards innovative products, which again is helpful in increasing market share.
Develop Your Email List: This is conceivably the best approach to keep your business afloat during a downturn. Email gives you the ideal opportunity to do just that. Now is a fantastic time to warm up old leads, get in touch with past clients and retarget one-time purchasers. This is a massive benefit if you are hesitant to commit your resources to finding new clients. To keep them on your mind, entice them with loyalty prizes, provide referral bonuses, and send out frequent email newsletters. It's encouraging to know that 80% of marketers believe email is the most excellent method for attracting new clients. Build your list using B2B email marketing techniques and your CRM system to monitor customer connections. Follow these steps to nurture the leads on your email list and get in touch with them to advertise your goods or services.