Tough financial times are the reality for people across the world and inflation has unwillingly affected every industry in one way or another. Witnessing these astronomical prices is a first for many as inflation reached an 8.5% increase in July, 2022 compared to the same time last year. So what’s the proper reaction when it comes to this first for many? A solution to every problem exists and we’ve thought up a few simple optimizations you can make in this guide to marketing during inflation to strengthen your business during these high-pressure times.
Back to the Marketing Basics
The importance of understanding your audience should never be overlooked, but viewing them through the lens of how inflation affects them brings new light to this topic. How does your audience benefit from your brand and what does it offer that can’t be foregone, even in these trying times? After sourcing this information, you can implement it into your marketing strategy to focus on the value-driven factors of your brand and why your product or service is necessary in the lives of your consumers. Uncover the passion of your brand and the value it holds through storytelling. Here, you create that connection that develops full resonation with your brand. So, when times are tough, you’ve built up enough to sustain the brand-consumer relationship.
You’ll want to also work to figure out ways you can help relieve pressure off of your customers during these times. If you’re an ecommerce company, try providing some sort of value-add or bigger savings that incentivizes your customers, but also helps them. Or, if you’re in the B2B space, think of ways you can provide value to your business customers. Maybe publishing a deeper ‘how to’ that can help them become more effective in their roles, or hosting a networking event for people looking to expanding their circle of influence. No matter who your audience is, try finding the things that will help them keep going.
Recalibrate Your Marketing Efforts
Now that the value your brand brings is clear (and sustainable), you can focus your energy and resources on consumers with more potential to need the product or service it offers. A remarketing strategy can be used in this scenario to identify who has previously shown an interest in your brand. This will also allow you to maximize the efficiency of your ad spend by pinpointing who has shown more interest over others. Gearing your marketing efforts towards these higher-potential individuals lets you combat the higher costs associated with inflation as you’ll undoubtedly generate a higher ROI.
Making sure you understand the tactics and activities occuring at every stage of your customer’s user journey is critical to ensuring that you are still navigating people through your brand’s content marketing journey.
Another way to help bridge any impacts to marketing caused by inflation is using evergreen content. It’s also a great way to help narrow efforts, especially if resources are constrained. Repurposing, updating and otherwise finding new and relevant ways to share existing content will help you stay relevant, but also continue to reinforce your message to your target audience.
Avoid Marketing Scale-Backs
We talk a lot about the importance of knowing your audience and this part is key. Oftentimes, during times of increased inflation, marketing budgets are impacted in ways that relieve financial stress off of the brand’s operating costs. But, it doesn’t mean halting campaigns and efforts. It just means you have to work smarter. Narrowing down your efforts will help you recalibrate, become more effective and adjust costs.
Budget cuts may come into play when trying to dodge the daunting effects of inflation, but dialing down on marketing shouldn’t be an option. Doing so would be like eliminating a source that feeds your brand and allows it to thrive. Instead, focus on redistributing spend in ways that have proven more efficient to optimize your marketing strategy. This means tracking metrics through a tool like Google Analytics that reveal which of your marketing efforts have proven to be the most successful.
Uncertain economic times are no reason to completely reimagine your marketing efforts, but a keen eye should be kept on how your brand can become more solid through these ebb and flows. Implementing the solutions from this guide to marketing during inflation will help you stay afloat through these times of high pressure and enable you to come out on the other side stronger.
