Best Practices for Marketing During Uncertain Times

Financial institutions are failing. Fortune 500 marketers are cutting budgets. Inflation is increasing. Consumer spending is uncertain. Trade deficits are rising.

The news is filled with dire headlines and seemingly worse news everyday. The market appears to be moving to a more conservative state. Through all this, you still have a business to run and grow. Here are five best practices for your marketing to help you come out ahead during an uncertain economy.

Establish Metrics: Before you invest any money in marketing, write down what you expect to get in return. A metric helps you establish benchmarks and milestones for measuring spend. Most importantly, it helps you establish an eject button to stop spending if it is not working.

For example, If you spend $1,000 on advertising, how many customers do you expect to gain in return? Or how much revenue do you expect to earn? If you spend $1,000 and expect to have 100 new customers as a result, your metric would be to spend $10 per new customer. If after spending the first $200, you have only gained 5 new customers, you can project that after spending $1,000 you would only gain 25 customers or 1/4 your target. At that point, you can make the determination about whether to continue spending the full $1,000 or to cut bait and save the remaining $800.

Track Performance: We have all heard the adage that, “I know that half of my advertising doesn’t work. The problem is, I don’t know which half.” In a tough economy, having 50% of your advertising not work will quickly put you at a severe disadvantage. The way to improve is to employ reliable tracking to analyze the performance of your marketing and determine which ‘half’ is working. By using data to quantifiably determine what parts of your marketing and advertising are working, you will be able to increase your return on investment and your competitive advantage.

For example, if you run ads three days in a row, the tracking would help you determine which day or which message drove the most customers to your business. More importantly, if you are evaluating a marketing opportunity and do not see a way to definitively track results at a detailed level, then it might be worth putting that idea on hold.

Ensure Line of Sight: Line of sight refers to the complete relationship of your customer with your business from awareness to sale to repeat sale. If at any point in the process, line of sight is broken, it is likely that you will lose the customer and may not be able to find that person again.

Your goal right from the first advertising impression is to not let that conversation end and to keep the prospect engaged until you have had sufficient time to propose your products and services for their consideration. Whether you are a retail store offering sales or a web-based business registering users for a newsletter, not losing sight of each of your potential customers once you engage them is critical to marking the most of your marketing spend.

Implement a Testing Regimen: Testing is the foundation of smart marketing. By segmenting a small portion of your budget to test new ideas and messages, you will create a center of excellence within your marketing to continue to evolve and improve. Testing allows you to try new ideas without risking the overall performance of a campaign and when you identify ‘winning results’ to easily implement on a broader scale. Most importantly, as the market dynamics change, your marketing program will be designed to always be evaluating, improving and evolving itself to meet new market conditions.

Confirm Out Clauses: Before signing a contract with any provider, evaluate the payment terms and out clause to ensure that you can cancel should you not be happy with the results. Most marketing partners will offer an option where you can cancel for any reason with advance written notice. You will still be responsible for payment of all services prior to the end date, but you can put a stop to your spending should the results not be what you expected. Most importantly, be wary of any marketing partner who does not offer an out clause.

If you would like additional information on this topic or a free consultation on your marketing efforts, please contact a Thrivepoint advisor.

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