Episode 35: Recession 2022: Digital Marketing During a Recession

Transcription:

Devin: 

You’re listening to Digital Marketing Mondays. Each week, we bring you new and exciting content from around the marketing industry and help give you, the marketer, insights into what’s happening. We’ll offer our advice and share some takeaways to help you develop better strategies for your marketing. Ideally, this will also help you improve your ROI as well. So with that, let’s tune into this week’s episode. 

Hans: 

Okay. So Devin, I am hearing a lot of news about the economy lately, as is- 

Devin: 

Oh boy. 

Hans: 

… Everyone else. And I mean, just to kind of set the table, inflation numbers just went up some more, we’re at north of 9% now, according to the government. And of course, if you go to the gas pump or the supermarket, or you’re looking to rent an apartment, it’s apparently much higher than that. So there’s that. Okay. At the same time we’re hearing the “R” word, the recession is coming. The recession is coming. If it’s not already here yet, I read a very interesting article this morning in the Wall Street Journal about the fact that this recession is like all recessions going to be unique, but what’s kind of crazy about this one is that unemployment is not going up. Unemployment’s actually going down while the GDP’s been going down. 

Hans: 

Now we don’t know if that’s going to hold forever, but it’s not like businesses are losing money, but they still can’t hire good people. So, I guess the thing is, this is kind of affecting different industries in different ways. If you’re in manufacturing, you got supply chain issues. If you’re a SAS company, you can still go after customers because you can fulfill their needs. But what are you hearing from marketers out there? What are the tea leaves saying to you from having conversations with our clients, and what do you think we should recommend our clients do at this point? You sit tight? Do you hoard your cash? Do you spend like crazy because nobody else is willing to spend like crazy and you can grab a lot of market share, or somewhere in between? So tell us a little bit about what you’re hearing and what you recommend. 

Devin: 

Yeah. It’s such a big, interesting topic too, and what’s difficult about it is that frankly, it’s not anything that any one of us listening, or you and I, Hans, are able to control by any stretch of the means. But I think what it does do is give us the opportunity to step back and say, “Okay, what do I control? What are the things that we are doing as marketing activities, as marketers? What are we doing?” And really, it’s a great opportunity and great excuse to now go back and reassess. What are the activities that are working? What’s not working? Because, inevitably the recession is going to hit us in different ways. Assuming that it does actually happen, which it looks like it will. And that is the opportunity for us to take that step back and to really think, “Okay, if we were to lose some budget, or if we were to say, even lose colleagues or not hire anybody, what are the activities and the things that we need to be doing to be ultimately driving the bottom line?” We’re getting back to basics is how I think about it. 

Hans: 

Yeah. 

Devin: 

And when you’re doing that, it’s a great time to really be measuring and assessing. What are those campaigns and strategies doing? Are they working? Now’s not the time to be running a bunch of fluff campaigns that haven’t proven to even generate a dollar for your company, or if you’re a college, right. They haven’t proven that they’re effective in driving any form of leads or if you’re a credit union, and not getting new membership signups… Now’s a great time to be looking to cancel some of those programs and start reassessing or reevaluating. 

Hans: 

Okay. 

Devin: 

If they are effective, though, now’s a great time to also think about, “Okay, how could we do more of that? Can we scale that up more effectively?” So the bottom line right now is that marketers all around are looking around and saying, “Okay, what’s working. What’s really, really working. Let’s measure it. Let’s redefine it. And let’s see if we can replicate the things that are working and possibly get rid of the things that aren’t.” And I think that’s a perfectly reasonable thought to be having right now, especially given the uncertainty of the storm clouds ahead. 

Hans: 

Yeah. Well, first of all, you got to have good data and you’ve got to be able to interpret it. And not just on the very, very top of the funnel. It’s not so much about clicks and people coming to your website, you’ve got to look down the funnel all the way through to sales. Maybe you could talk a little bit about which metrics really matter. And if you don’t have your data analytics really in good working order, you need to have done that yesterday. And today is not a bad time to make sure you get that in order. But what do you think the real metrics are people should be looking at? Because there are a lot of fluff metrics that people gauge themselves on, which I think is a bad idea right now, if I’m hearing you correctly. What metrics do we want to focus on? And is it okay to steal cash from things that aren’t contributing to those results so that we can reinforce campaigns that really matter? 

Devin: 

Yeah, it’s a great question. And I think so much of what marketers need to be focusing on, essentially, regardless of what industry you’re in; it needs to be, how many leads am I bringing in? Are they qualified? And then, what is ultimately the bottom line that they’re producing from a business perspective? And again, whether for a school, that’s the number of matriculated students that actually show up at the door on day one. For a SAS product that’s the number of actually close-one deals that you get in deal volume. Now is the time. Most everybody listening has the ability to be able to track this. And that’s really where you’re going to make your most money, right? It’s your leads, it’s your qualified leads. And then it’s really your pipeline that’s being influenced by these activities. That’s the core of what marketers should be focused on at this point. 

Devin: 

I think gone are the days that you can really hang your hat on the number of impressions that you got or the number of clicks, or even I would consider the soft number of conversions, which, conversions are even a little iffy. Because, I could care less about time on site. I care about the activities that are driving the leads that are generating business. And so I think now’s a great time, again, to be able to say, “All right, impressions are out, clicks are out. I don’t necessarily care about those.” Yes. I mean, obviously if you’re seeing that you have ad campaigns as an example that are driving qualified leads, then yeah let’s get those up, right. Because we can drive more of those, more impressions, more clicks, more leads. But otherwise, the top line metrics don’t really matter as much anymore, or at least to this day and age, it’s the activities that are driving the leads. 

Hans: 

Yep. 

Devin: 

So I think that the core that all marketers should really be dead centered on right now is, what are those activities that will drive that total lead volume. And especially, and the obvious is qualified leads and the business outcomes, the close-one business. For whoever, whatever industry you’re in, that’s really what matters. And if whatever activities you’re doing are not working, or driving towards that, fix it. And if you don’t have the tools or the means to be able to measure those things, which you should be kicking yourself right now and going out there and investing in those tools and technologies to be able to do so, because it’s available, it’s all out there. And it’s no longer an option for you, as a business owner or business marketer, to be able to not have those tools at your disposal. 

Hans: 

One of the things I recall, I’m quite a few years older than you Devin. And I have lived through a few of these cycles before. And in fact, even during eCommerce days, the early 2000’s, 2009, 2008-2009. And one of the things that I noticed was that advertisers pulled back. And since a lot of this is kind of an auction, paid traffic is usually run as kind of an auction. It means that with fewer bidders, the pricing on those ads came down. So this actually spells opportunity to a certain degree. As long as you can focus your money, where it’ll do you some good, you might be able to pick up some bargains and gain some market share over your competitors if you’ve got really good, actionable data to base your decisions on, I think. 

Devin: 

Yeah, it all comes back to the proof. If it’s in the pudding, then go for it. Keep eating the pudding. But if it’s not, then don’t listen to the ad platforms telling you continue to invest, continue to invest. If it’s not driving the results, you don’t invest. The day before this recording, I was on a call with LinkedIn and the reps even had a script that they were reading off that said, “Now’s not the time to pull out from spending. You need to continue to spend to drive the leads that will ultimately bring you business.” And while I think there’s a grain of truth in there, I think there’s also a lot of scared mentality, scared thinking in there, and a lot of BS. So it comes down to, again, what are those activities or those campaigns that are driving the results? Double down on those, let go of the things that aren’t working. That’s really where we need to be focused on. 

Devin: 

And you’re right. I mean, even during the early days in the COVID downturn, because we were in a recession there, it was an extremely short recession, but we were there. A lot of advertisers that did pull out were obviously not making or driving the leads or the business that they needed at that point in time. But a lot of our clients, especially – they stayed advertising, some decreased their spend a little bit, but what we saw was week over week drops in cost per click, like nearly overnight. It seemed every day, it was getting cheaper to be on the ad platforms. And of course, that recovered very quickly and since even skyrocketed, but for the most part, they got cheaper to run on those platforms because there were less people on it. So, I think to some respect you’re right. It’s a good thing, but you need to be measured in your approach. 

Hans: 

Yeah. 

Devin: 

And that’s the bottom line. 

Hans: 

Yeah. So get your analytics house in order and be ready to pounce when stuff gets cheap. 

Devin: 

Exactly. 

Hans: 

So, interesting. Good. All right. Well, thanks Devin. This is very interesting. I hope people find this helpful and as always, if they want to talk to us, we’re happy to discuss their situation. 

Devin: 

Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for flagging this Hans. 

Hans: 

You bet. All right. See ya. 

Devin: 

See ya. 

Devin: 

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