It’s coming around again, had to happen sooner or later. I graduated and found my first job in technology in a recession and times have been up and down since. Bar those heady dotcom boom days of seemingly bottomless 7 figure budgets, it’s always been a case of proposing and justifying spend according to a plan based on an expectation of results. From time to time though, economic conditions dictate that we’re headed the way of corporate belt-tightening, so what thoughts could I share?

First, I’d say give everything a good shake. Yourself too, if you need to, then look at the direct spend related areas of your marketing plan, and their results and run through it all, top down, with a hefty dose of ‘so what?’. Art or science, allocating budget is your thing, so question what can make it go further. Worse may be yet to come if budgets are cut from plan, so having run through already from top to bottom will put you in a better place for those inevitable conversations about less money.
Best use of budget is basics, and in more comfortable times, it’s easy to allow for slack – now is the time to remove the fat and justify your reasoning so that what remains will deliver desired results.

How does your MarTech stack up?

Specifically, my gut feeling is that there’s alot more cross-over and nice-to-haves in that lovely martech stack than you’re really using. Aspirational modules that might rely on higher volumes of traffic than your B2B site can meaningfully drive, are one to cut back. Do you really need the pro version or would freemium entry level suffice? It might make a couple of things more hands-on for you than previously, but you have hands and a working brain (and a job with budgetary responsibility), so now’s the time to redeploy those resources. If you do have those premium functions, it’s a good time to deploy them to the limit. A/B testing should be easy enough to set up, even if you never have before and might give you more clues to separate the worthwhile from the wastage.

PPC and ad spend

This is one area that’s so easy to sanity check, it’s a no brainer to dig in and even make some subtle changes to see what the effects are. If you’re using an agency, ask them to explain anything that makes you ask ‘what, really?’ – and if you’re comfortable with having a nose around those dashboards yourself , remember that you have every right. And SEO – well it’s ‘free’ but certainly not easy, so yes you can turn down your paid ads but be prepared to do the homework in optimising search, particularly in tailoring content for more recession-busting messages that will resonate with concerned audiences.

Talking of agency…

It’s all about expertise, at the end of the day. If elements of a programme are worth keeping after the initial shake-out, they need to be performed either in-house or externally. Working relations built in the good times will stand you in good stead when spend is tighter – they won’t want to lose you, you need them and realism (or recession) is the referee. We’re all in it together as they say, but reacting and dropping the good guys for the cheaper bidder probably isn’t going to help you short or long term. Talk, look at teasing out any waste and see where you can streamline often on both expectation and delivery – it’s a business relationship that should come out the other side.

Think like a customer.

Your clients are doing all this too. They’re also looking at the resources they pay for against the ‘doing more for less’ barometer. Recession is a good reminder not to believe your own hype, and to give your core messaging and differentiators a good shake. What do we promise, what do we deliver, what do clients actually want from us and gain advantage from? This thinking goes back into the revised planning – your content plan and hierarchy may need some adjustment, even recovering old ground but never forget that just because you’ve said it before, that doesn’t mean everyone saw it the way you did.

We’re in for a ride, for sure, keep your eyes open and there’s always room to adjust!