Blog
Times are tough for many businesses and sadly the economic forecast is not filling many business owners with joy either! But as previous downturns have shown us, by focusing on what you can control and doing what you do really well, not only will you weather the storm but your business may well come out of the other side in better shape.
There have been mixed messages about whether to cut marketing budgets in the press (primarily from Politicians!) but history has shown that those that don’t cut everything back and who continue to invest in a focused and strategic marketing plan will perform better.
What’s needed is an approach that provides good ROI, and allows businesses to measure this in a meaningful way. Here we’ve put together our advice on what you can be doing now to help keep your company on current clients’ radar, and also educate potential new clients. One key thing to remember is services and products will still need to be purchased, and even in trickier times, there will be certain sectors that will continue to thrive and grow. But being mindful of your tone of voice and messaging will show you appreciate all the external factors too.
Reuse, repurpose & recycle
Reuse, repurpose, and recycle what you already have! There was a great article in Marketing Week recently talking about how people don’t tire as much as we think about seeing the same advertisements. In fact, if they like them they continue to enjoy seeing them. Although on social media you wouldn’t want to post the same content repeatedly, it’s important to realise that people may not have seen it before. The algorithms mean not everyone may have seen it the first time around or even the second. Perhaps the timing was out before and sharing again may gain more engagement.
Look at what you have and decide what can be repurposed, that way if you are going to invest in new content, you’ll know it’s genuinely producing something you haven’t already got.
Assess what has worked best before. It can be tempting to invest time and effort in trying lots of new things be that new content formats, platforms etc but the risk with this is that it can become a scattergun approach where costs can quickly escalate.
If your budget won’t stretch to producing content, engaging with comments, and analysing all of your current platforms scale back! This might sound counterintuitive as to win more business surely it’s better to be seen everywhere? Well no that’s not the case, it’s better to be showing up on the platform that has more of your target customer and doing it really well, than doing everything not very well! Our audits have helped clients to really understand where they get the most value and then focus on that.
Help, not sell
In the business to business world, it’s seen as a given that promoting your products and services needs to continue through whatever the economic circumstances. But that doesn’t mean that as individuals within those businesses people aren’t left wondering how they come across on social media without seeming callous of the current climate or, just too upbeat. This one is particularly tricky if your company is doing well.
Our advice would be don’t think about selling directly, think about helping. Focus on content you share or comments you make adding value and giving something back to existing or potential clients. If you keep this at the forefront of your mind when engaging on social media the chances are the tone will naturally seem right. If you can take that conversation offline and provide more value that’s even better.
Email marketing
When thinking about ROI all businesses across nearly all sectors (we can’t think of one this wouldn’t apply to!) should have an email list, and be communicating with clients through this too. Social media can help complement your email marketing strategy, and you can use email marketing to drive more activity to your social channels. The beauty of emails is that they provide more time for you to speak one to one with your clients, whilst they aren’t scrolling through looking at everyone else’s content.
You might also be surprised to learn that current stats show that on average across all sectors for every $1 spent on social the ROI is $2.80 whereas for email marketing for every $1 spent the return is $36!
The chances are if you already have a blog up and running on your website and are sharing other content on Social Media you will already have content at hand to add to a newsletter and add value to those reading it.
Could benefit from our advice on how to streamline what you’re currently doing on social media? Are you really looking to maximise your budgets by focussing on the right channels and content, that resonate with your audience? Then get in touch with us to discuss how we could help.
