The past six months have been filled with chaos. First, interest rates climbed higher, and then inflation rose. This was followed by unrest in Eastern Europe, with truly horrible events.
The result is that most sectors are shrinking, and marketing activities are affected. Marketers appreciate the reduction in consumers’ discretionary spending, which helped prop up the retail industry during lockdowns. The number of shoppers will probably shrink in most categories as a result. From a digital marketing perspective, the competition just got tougher.
As a marketer, there are three things you can do to survive the changing economic trends:
When it comes to digital marketing and brand, having your product ensures dominant visibility. If a customer searches for your product, you win the AdWords auction, and your brand is at the top of a search engine results page (SERP).
If a customer is searching for a broader term, you can still rank among the sponsored articles on the right-hand side of the page. Of course, that costs more—this advantage comes at a price. Still, you have an advantage over competitors fighting to rank organically on broad terms.
When market conditions are unfavourable, even leading brands must take drastic measures to survive. One such measure is to focus efforts on going after market share from competitors to secure the future of the company.
Instead of trying to keep appeal high on a large scale, it can be better to target appeals to a small group of users who are already interested in your product. Content strategies are also best when they focus on unique selling points instead of trying to appeal to everyone.
In marketing theory, there are five stages to the decision-making process: need recognition, information search, evaluation of alternatives, purchase, and post-purchase behaviour.
To get the most gain with the least investment from a shrinking market, it is essential to focus on delivering real value to consumers by focusing on meeting users in the information search and refining your value proposition during the evaluation of alternatives. Focusing on delivering real value to consumers and building a relationship with them helps you stand out when users evaluate options.
The fight for visibility in search, as well as on all other channels, will continue. The best approach is to use what you already own. Reach across owned media that you already have to give yourself an advantage because it’s free.
This is in comparison with purchasing backlinks from a company hoping to move up in search results. Investing in backlinks can get expensive quickly, but using your owned media will allow you to reach the same number of people for less money.
You should focus on the content and relevance so that customers can easily see your offer. And letting Google index your information is a great way to increase your visibility without spending money or time. This is what technical excellence looks like.
As marketers, it is tempting to spend time and money on optimising our company’s sites for search. However, because of the changing economic conditions, there is a drop in total conversion rates, and advertisers are concerned. Regarding the type of results that rank well in search, there remains a gap between those truly relevant to users and those poorly optimised.
Hurricane Digital is a new age local business focused marketing agency based in Brisbane. Conducting razor sharp local search engine optimisation with one goal in mind; getting you more leads. Our local business tailored approach works to cut the fluff and excess cost out of local digital services. Making us the most cost effective and efficient service in the industry. Hurricane Digital services clients Australia wide. If you need digital marketing services in Brisbane, we’re happy to help! Get in touch with us today and let’s talk!
