In times of economic downturns, it’s essential to ensure your communication and marketing plans are recession-proof. However, the latest research from Linkedin suggests brands will keep on building and not hold back, despite the economic picture.
You can do a few things to ensure your spending remains conservative while still reaching your goals in times of challenging external influences. But this doesn’t necessarily mean less is more.
Here are some reflections on LinkedIn’s latest marketing research and expert views and three tips to get you thinking.
Let’s dive in!
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Links mentioned in this episode:
My simple measurement framework:
https://henbe.co.uk/2022/06/30/ep-81-how-not-to-fail-at-comms-a-simple-measurement-framework/
LinkedIn research
https://pressgazette.co.uk/b2b-marketers-remain-positive-despite-economic-gloom/
Full transcript (unedited)
In times of economic downturns, it’s essential to make sure your communication and marketing plans are recession-proof. However, the latest research from Linkedin suggests brands will keep on building and not hold back, despite the economic picture.
You can do a few things to make sure your spending remains conservative while still reaching your goals in times of challenging external influences. But this doesn’t necessarily mean less is more.
Here are some reflections on LinkedIn’s latest marketing research and expert views and three tips to get you thinking.
Let’s dive in!
The LinkedIn research is very interesting and demonstrates that businesses are not holding back and remain optimistic despite the current issues with struggling economies globally, a post-pandemic environment and a cost of living crisis in the UK.
Of the 1,700+ respondents, the majority (76%) of senior B2B marketers are optimistic about their marketing strategy over the next six months, with 67% planning to maintain or increase spending on brand building in particular.
One Head of EMEA Marketing said that 55% of marketers across Europe cite the cost-of-living crisis as one of their top concerns when it comes to hitting their target over the next 12 months.
This figure rises to 65% in the UK. Despite this, it reveals that businesses are focusing more on efficient growth and spending and are not deterred from meeting their goals. If fact, Optimism remains strong.
However, Germany, GB, Italy, Spain, France and Holland are all far less enthusiastic than those in the Americas, Asia, the Middle East and Australasia.
One of the challenges cited in the research is getting buy-in from senior stakeholders and understanding the effectiveness of communication activity (in this case, marketing activity and ROI). So those without a considered and measurable plan or good internal stakeholder relations may fair worse in these circumstances, and I agree with that as well.
In the report, of the companies that saw budgets impacted, three in ten say the business does not understand B2B marketing ROI. I know from experience that this is very common.
But is it better to go hard or claw back on activity?
I agree with experts in the report that in a digital world, consumers are looking to google to help them with their decision-making. Therefore, search and good content and PR are increasingly going to be important areas of spend to continue to get noticed amongst the noise rather than pulling back on these areas.
Make sure that your communication and marketing plans are economy-proof, take these steps:
First, review your goals and objectives to ensure they are still relevant in the current market conditions.
Undertaking a review of the operating context you’re in is a healthy thing to do at the best of times, but even more important as economies take a downturn.
Focusing on activities that will help your ROI, so those informed by your review or current measurement and evaluation framework; such as digital channels and improving your traditional PR with digital, as well as scaling back any vanity channels (if you have any) will help refine your activity and make it measurable. Of course, there may be channels that will be offline depending on your business; also, making sure you have a robust process to measure them will be key. This is the time to implement that measurement framework if you don’t have one too.
Second, make sure that your communication channels are delivering the right messages to the right people at the right time.
Seems a bit comms 101, right? But none wants content to hit the channels and it not be relevant or be completely inappropriate, as this will lead to content that does not work, which in turn leads to goals not being met and that holy grail of ROI not having any chance at all of being reached.
I am sure we can all cite examples of pandemic content that was entirely inappropriate due to the timing or content of the message.
Customers and stakeholders will also feel the pinch of the cost of living crisis and reconsider their priorities. Being empathetic, offering free advice of value, being responsive and providing good timely service will be even more critical in tough times.
Inspired Energy is one example of such a company in B2B that is constantly looking to stay ahead of the curve by providing updates on what policy changes mean for business energy users. In short. Be helpful and kind. You can be part of the solution.
Third, be sure to track your results and constantly adjust your marketing plan as needed.
Monitoring is as important as evaluating success. I would go as far as to say, more important. I use a measurement framework based on the government communication model. This measures the work you do; inputs against the outputs and, importantly, outcomes.
Finally, keep a budget in mind and make sure that you are not overspending on your marketing efforts.
When reviewing your objectives, include spending in this and likely resources that would be your campaign needs overall. A poor budget can let down a great idea. Sometimes spending more in the right areas rather than covering all bases is the right thing to do in times of recovery.
I hope you enjoyed this podcast episode; I’d love to hear your ideas and thoughts on this subject. If you want to find out more about how I can help you with a measurement framework then have a listen to this Episode 81 and get in touch for a chat.
Links mentioned in this episode.
My simple measurement framework:
https://henbe.co.uk/2022/06/30/ep-81-how-not-to-fail-at-comms-a-simple-measurement-framework/
LinkedIn research
https://pressgazette.co.uk/b2b-marketers-remain-positive-despite-economic-gloom/