Recession Marketing – Keep the Revenue Flowing Even When the Pressure Hits

Use These Targeted Marketing Strategies During Economic Uncertainty

Is your marketing under increased urgency to deliver results in the current economy? Are you on a tight budget but still need to grow your market share?

Marketing during a recession is often much more challenging than during normal times, and we’ll get into some of the reasons in a moment. Sometimes, it’s just about survival. Get through the economic turbulence, even with a few bumps and bruises, and then start growing and building again. But other times, recessions offer an opportunity to capitalize on the unique challenges of the times.

What goes wrong in a recession?

Recessions cause problems on both ends of the economy — businesses and consumers. Recession proofing a business begins with understanding what’s going wrong. Here are just a few of the main challenges you’ll be facing when the economic headwinds hit.

Profitability sinks

In previous recessions, 89% of companies lost profitability. Many failed or never returned to their previous levels of success. However, of the 11% that didn’t lose, their profits grew by 17% during the recession. So it’s possible to not just keep a business afloat during a recession, but to grow and thrive.

Fear inhibits investment in marketing

Sometimes companies and consumers get the jitters just because the news tells them they should, when in reality little needs to change. But, if people are losing jobs in great enough numbers, it will affect the economy.

So, it’s easy for many brands to fall into the trap of retreating before the recession has even affected them. They cut back on marketing. They reduce the advertising budget. They lay people off. They convince themselves they need to start saving money and that the way to do this is to spend less.

Sometimes, this may be true. But you don’t want to jump the start, and you don’t want to pull back when the smarter approach might be to shift marketing strategies or even increase spending. Cutting spending during an economic downturn can cause more harm than good for the business.

People spend less

When recessions hit, many consumers do tighten the belt and spend less — even the ones who haven’t lost their jobs. This isn’t always rational, but it still happens, and it means brands have to put some effort into determining how the spending habits of their customers might be changing.

Messaging gets outdated

The last recession hit very fast. Suddenly, inflation skyrocketed and the economy contracted. Some brand messaging that had been running before that quickly became outdated. If people are feeling pressed and jobs are being lost, your marketing content can’t be tone deaf to that reality or it will turn people off.

Customer behaviors shift

More behaviors change in a recession for consumers than just spending habits. They might spend their time differently. They might adjust their eating habits, change their travel plans, or change the timelines for things they’d planned to do.

In past recessions, when the real estate market struggled, many homeowners invested in remodeling and home improvement projects to increase the value of their existing property. Behavior shifts like this can be capitalized on for companies paying attention. 

Not all behavior shifts are automatically negative. You might just have to shift your marketing efforts to remain relevant to how consumers are changing their behaviors.

How can brands respond to a recession?

When it comes to budget-conscious marketing, here’s your modus operandi:

Be measurable. Be efficient. Be targeted.

The need for marketing to deliver tangible results in an economic downturn is only going to increase. In a marketing situation with these types of challenges, when results and return on investment are the only way to win, there are a few key shifts you can make in your marketing strategies. 

And while we could spend lots of time talking about all the things your business could do to stay agile during a recession, we’re going to fixate on just one.

Yes, you should update your messaging to remain relevant and sensitive to the recession risk. Yes, you should update your customer data to fit your new strategy. Yes, you should keep marketing and don’t just throw in the towel. Don’t stop selling. Consider updating your website. Focus on the customer experience. 

All of this is good. But the most important thing of all is to keep marketing. If your competition cuts back their marketing spend, that actually opens up opportunities for your business to get more attention and gain market share.

In times of economic pressure, marketing that can prove its impact is the only kind worth doing. That’s where Power Direct’s GPS-verified front-door campaigns stand out—measurable, targeted, and built for real-world results.

Focus on direct response marketing

And the most cost-effective and reliable marketing approach is to utilize the proven principles of direct response marketing. In a large part, that means using media that is measurable. As one executive quoted in another article put it, “There’s already a call for more efficient, measurable media. There’s going to be a greater squeeze on that.”

In economic downturns, it’s all about getting a response and knowing what works. Unless a business is already swimming in revenue, this isn’t the time for risky big budget ad campaigns. Recession marketing is all about directly engaging potential customers with your products and services, and showing how you can win their loyalty even during the recession.

Remember — people still have to eat. They still have to move. They still have to work. It’s not like all our needs and interests just halt because the news tells us there’s a recession. People will still spend money. 

Your job is to go out there and engage with them.

TV and radio ads can be effective, but they’re hard to measure, and they don’t reach target audiences as easily. That means it’s hard to track ad performance, know who is actually watching or listening to them, or what kind of return on investment they generated. 

So which forms of marketing offer lower cost and higher efficiency — meaning higher response rates — to attract and convert customers? 

There are four, one of which stands above the rest. While a robust, comprehensive results-driven marketing plan will utilize many marketing channels, the focus should be on efficient, effective use of advertising spend with measurable returns on investment.

Three reliable channels for recession marketing

How do you keep communicating with customers and prospects when you’re being told to find cost savings in the ad budget? Use marketing channels that cost less but still deliver results. Here are four of the most effective.

1. Door hanger marketing

The ability to target specific prospects on their front door offers the best combination of low cost, high efficiency marketing, and it offers highly personal brand visibility. 

With a door hanger, there is no clutter to sort through like a mailbox or an inbox. There are no other distracting items like in print media or digital channels. And you can’t just flip or click away like on TV or streaming. 

What does a campaign cost?

Get a custom-built sample campaign with real targeting data, ad creative, cost estimates, and distribution plans.

Use the Project Estimator

Only front door marketing — even if for just a few moments — occupies basically every prospect’s full attention. No form of marketing can get higher impressions than door hanger marketing. That alone earns it the highest marketing efficiency. Because more people in your target audience will see it, more will respond. All you need to do is create a good ad and hire the right company to plan and implement the campaign.

Front door marketing also empowers you to hyper-target for very particular demographics and psychographics. Power Direct’s targeting capabilities are no less powerful than what you can do with digital marketing, except ours aren’t susceptible to bots and imaginary people.

You can also segment geographically by cities, neighborhoods, zip codes, block groups, or even by individually selected addresses that fit your specific targeting criteria. You can even use our brand ambassador staffing service to send representatives to speak with people directly. 

Finally, flyer distribution marketing is measurable. Depending on your ad’s call to action, you can measure your ad’s effectiveness by number of phone calls, online signups, or visits to your store. The best way to drive in-store traffic is to provide a coupon, game piece, scratch-off, or some other item they must bring in. 

2. Direct mail

Direct mail is also more cost-effective considering the historically high response rates, but you are up against greater competition than with front door marketing. First, you have to compete against everything else in the mailbox. You’re also up against the cultural perception surrounding direct mail. You must overcome the “Is this junk mail?” instinct that many people have built up over years of receiving such mail. 

As a result, direct mail earns lower response rates than front door marketing. Again, this is not meant to say businesses shouldn’t use direct mail (or any other marketing media). But if you’re recession proofing your brand, you want to carefully allocate your marketing spend in the most efficient manner.

3. Email

The best use of email marketing is generally to your in-house email list — existing subscribers and customers. For the acquisition of new customers, email is a much more challenging medium. But it is more cost-effective considering the number of people you can reach. 

Email marketing generally has one of the highest returns of any marketing channel because it takes less to invest in it. But it’s also easy for consumers to miss emails, as many people have multiple email accounts and get dozens of messages every day. 

If you’re looking for maximum exposure for your most critical campaigns in your most targeted geographic regions and demographics, email alone won’t usually be enough.

What about digital marketing?

In 2009 during the Great Recession, U.S. ad spending dropped by 12%. That was a particularly rough time for business leaders, but it again demonstrates how companies react when a recession or serious economic downturn arrives. As you reconsider your budget allocation for marketing, make sure you don’t sacrifice higher sales or the growth of the business for short term gains. 

And that brings us to digital marketing. 

How should your business use the internet to maintain brand visibility, engage customers, and grow market share even in tough times?

A challenging marketing environment

Online marketing — broadly speaking — has a tough time earning consistently healthy ROI. Facebook, for example, saw its overall ROI from ad spending drop by over 50% in 2019. This came in part from some political scandals at that time. But the effect on their users’ trust in what they see on the platform has been slow to return.

Digital marketing is fraught with risks like this. What works one year doesn’t work as well the next. With AI upending so many norms that had been in place for many years, numerous social media channels, cyberthreats, and the constantly shifting preferences of users, keeping up requires vigilance and constant adjustment. 

In other words — you’ll invest more money to make it work consistently. You’ll get short term success but will struggle to replicate or maintain it.

Thus, when you’re in a situation where you need to trim some percentage of your marketing budget or increase your efficiency, reducing your online marketing spend may be the easiest and least harmful place to find those savings.

Online advertising is high expense, low impact. Its greatest challenge comes from how easily and quickly people can be distracted by other things on the screen. And, though it seems measurable, the propensity of ad fraud casts doubt on some of your online metrics.

Look for digital efficiencies

How can you leverage the power, reach, and advantages of digital technology without getting caught up in spending wars? That would require a separate article to give a thorough answer. 

But in brief, here are a few strategies to consider:

• Use multiple channels — don’t put all your hopes in a single digital marketing channel
• Don’t use more channels than you can handle — make sure you can manage it all
• Watch your spending — digital businesses will charge you for everything and you won’t realize it until after you get the bill, so stay on top of your settings and limits
• Focus on meaningful metrics — shares and likes don’t mean as much as page visits, opt-ins, downloads, and purchases
• Use eye-catching and creative images and headlines – get more attention with fewer ads
• Optimize through ongoing testing 
• Leverage opportunities from current events and trending topics

Tried and True Advertising — The High-Pressure Recession Marketing Game Plan

What marketing and revenue goals is your business striving to achieve while working with a reduced budget, increased scrutiny, high demand for ROI, or all of these? Common marketing goals might include:

• Keeping costs down and traffic, sales, and conversions high
• Keeping your first party data list growing
• Drawing new customers in
• Engaging your target demographics and local customers, if applicable
• Knowing how well your advertising is working

The single best advertising media to accomplish all of this is front door marketing. 

Power Direct operates a customer data center that rivals that of any online platform.

As mentioned earlier, you can target addresses for just about anything you want. Size of family, number of vehicles, household income, education, and if you provide us with your customer transaction history — customer behavior — that’s just a sample of what we can do. You can target block groups, cities, and specific addresses. Whoever you want to reach, you can reach. 

Why is door hanger marketing so effective?

In all the uncertainty of a recession or economic downturn, customers and prospects are looking for deals and new opportunities. They’re open to doing things differently. They want to try something new. 

Most people aren’t accustomed to finding something on their front door. It’s new. It’s a pattern interrupter. They don’t perceive it as advertising the way they would if the exact same item appeared in their mailbox. 

Front door marketing combines that feeling with what are best described as mini-billboards. We are not talking about hanging paper fliers on doorknobs. Our products don’t just blow away in the wind. 

These are attention-getting, durable, memorable advertising creations.

Want to see a few examples of the front door marketing you can put on your targeted prospects’ front doors?

See 9 of Our Best Front Door Media Options