Digital Marketing: Tips for marketing in a bad economy

Unfavourable economic climate does not mean that everything will grind to a halt, even in the harshest economy, you can successfully optimize digital marketing with these tips.

Everywhere you turn businesses big and small, individuals and even public agencies are complaining of the current economic climate. With  a combination of issues including the drop in the oil price, security challenges, power infrastructure issues and the deep plummet of the naira into a seemingly bottomless pit everybody is feeling the pinch. So along with the contraction of the economy comes the contraction of marketing budgets and people are leaving the more expensive traditional marketing means to more digital channels.

The bad economy also reduced sales for businesses as customers are tightening their budgets. Simply put the tough economy requires a different more nuanced approach.

Here's how to make your Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Linked-In and Adwords marketing work for you in the best way possible:

Track EVERYTHING!

Tracking your activity and spend are very important for you to be able to know exactly how your campaign is going. By doing this you can pin point the activities that are most useful and those that are most useless so that you can repeat what works and eliminate what is not. It also helps you make the best possible use of your funds, as it has become paramount in our cash strapped economy to spend your cash wisely.

Have a Plan

By planning your campaigns in detail before execution, you are able to know what to expect and prepare for contingencies. In your plan you should consider the platforms that work best for your brand and the paid marketing channels that would most effectively drive your message. You will also be able to set goals and targets. This  enables you to spend efficiently and helps you save time against otherwise meaningless activity. As they say, time is money so you must plan your campaign very well to execute efficiently and save time and money.

Give Offers and Free Trial

In this climate, your customers are also going to be tightening their budgets so they would be on the look out for deals and freebies. If you can, offer them deals like 20% off the price (or whichever proportion works for your business) and they weigh you against your competitors who charge full price and most likely chose you. Also if you can offer free trials to new customers, your customers would find these attractive and would patronize your brand more.

Have Multiple Paths to Purchase

Customers have access to a variety of means to make purchases such a by phone, online, by email, and even directly from social networks. To increase your chances of reaching customers at their convenience and simultaneously increasing your bottom line, it is imperative to have multiple paths to purchase. In the current economic climate, you must take advantage of all the means available to make conversions so that you can earn maximum returns.

At Ringier Digital Marketing, we have teams of experts that can help you maximize your online presence and optimize your social media activity. We also have a track record of facilitating returns for customers ranging from individuals to SMEs to multi-national corporation. Contact us today to get started and let us work with you to make sure your brand succeeds regardless of the economic climate.

Written by Tolani Olusola

This is a feature by RDM