Marketing in a Recession: How to Adapt & Win When Others Retreat

Taking a passive stance means losing valuable ground.

While your competitors are focused on hunkering down, you can be building relationships, reinforcing trust, and positioning yourself for future growth.
People still need goods and services. They still make purchasing decisions. And they still respond to businesses and brands that connect with them on an emotional level.

The key is to adapt your approach by:

1. Adjusting to a longer sales cycle. Understand that customers are taking more time to make decisions. Reach out to them early in their journey and nurture them through the process.
2. Strengthening brand recognition. Reinforce your presence and build trust with customers who are seeking stability. A familiar brand offers a sense of security in uncertain times.
3. Sending the right message. Acknowledge your audience’s concerns and offer solutions. Show them you understand their challenges and are there to support them.

We’ll explore each of these points in detail, providing practical strategies to help you navigate the current climate and emerge stronger on the other side.

Economic downturns naturally lead to more cautious consumer behaviour.

People take longer to make purchasing decisions. They spend more time researching and comparing their options – and not just when it comes to pricing. Value and quality matter more than ever when consumers are stretching their budgets.

Right now, we’re also seeing consumers pay close attention to country of origin and company ownership – a trend which applies to both business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer (B2C) markets.

The result of this shift in consumer behaviour is that sales cycles become longer and more drawn-out. This presents a challenge, of course, to businesses that are used to a much faster turnaround.

Marketing, and particularly awareness advertising, is absolutely vital for reaching these cautious consumers early in their buying journey and nurturing them through the sales funnel. Investing in the awareness stage builds up a larger pool of prospects.

Then, when those prospects are ready to buy, your brand is already at the top of their minds.

These are starting points. The best strategies will always be those made for your specific business, customers, and circumstances. Adapt your approach accordingly.

• Develop valuable, informative content. Create blog posts, articles, eBooks, videos, and other marketing collateral that address your audience’s concerns, answer their questions, and guide them through the decision-making process. You only have to invest in creating these once, and they will continue to provide dividends each time a new prospect uses them.
• Focus on value. When customers are hesitant to spend, it’s not only pricing or product features that matter, but value. Talk about the benefits of your product or service and how it solves their specific pain points, not just what it is, what it does, and what it costs.
• Optimize your website for SEO. You want to ensure that potential clients and customers can easily find you when they go searching for products and services like yours. The evergreen content mentioned in the point above can also be a great SEO asset if properly optimized.
• Use email marketing to nurture customer relationships. Once you have a prospect’s email address, it costs nothing to email them. As with evergreen content, an email nurture campaign is something you can create once, automate, and then use time and time again.
• Emphasize customer service. Provide exceptional customer service at every touchpoint, recognizing that potential customers and clients may need more time and more information. Avoid pressuring them and focus on building trust. Every interaction is an opportunity to strengthen your relationship and move the customer closer to a decision.

Brand recognition matters more than ever during times of uncertainty. Your customers and partners are looking for stability. A familiar brand offers a sense of security and confidence.

Consistent marketing and advertising reminds people you’re still here and here to stay.

Now is the time to protect and preserve the brand ‘equity’ you’ve built and nurtured for years. You won’t lose it overnight, of course, because the good work you’ve done isn’t something people will simply forget.

But the longer they go without hearing your name (and the more they hear from your competitors instead), the harder it will be to get going again when the economic pendulum swings back.

Consider these strategies. Take the time to analyze your current brand perception and identify areas for improvement.

• Stay in touch. Don’t let your brand fade into the background. Maintain a consistent presence through regular communication across various channels: your website, social media, email, etc. You need to remind your audience that you’re still here, you’re still active, and you’re still committed to serving them.
• Be consistent in your branding. This includes your website, social media, marketing materials, and customer service interactions. Make sure that your logo, colours, fonts, and messaging are consistent and reflect who you are. This matters in any climate, but especially one where prospects are searching for stability.
• Get involved in your community. Sponsor the local events, support the charitable causes, and be present at the trade shows and industry events you would when times were good. Scale back if necessary, but don’t disappear. Goodwill is a difficult thing to regain once lost.
• Don’t underestimate the power of public relations. Right now, many media outlets are looking for business owners who are willing to discuss the changing business landscape or highlight their local bona fides. Media appearances, guest articles, blog posts, and press releases are great opportunities to stay visible and build credibility.

It goes without saying that times like these test everybody, not just those running and operating a business. Your clients and customers are feeling it, too.

The impact of inflation has been impossible to ignore for years, and now, the stress has been compounded by external factors. People are worried about their homes, their jobs, and their families.

In uncertain times, customers gravitate towards brands that meet them where they are and speak to them.

The key is to craft messages that reflect the times and describe how your products or services benefit them. Acknowledge their pain, but don’t dwell on it; instead, empower people and help them think of ways to be in control in a world where they feel out of control.

In Canada, we are already seeing some businesses speak up and shift their messaging in a huge way. Those with strong ties to the country are actively promoting those ties in a way they hadn’t been six months ago. And in both Canada and the United States, we’re seeing businesses talk about their values – and changes to corporate policy that better reflect those values.

While others hesitate, you can seize opportunities to innovate and adapt. Position your brand as a thought leader and a reliable partner. This is the time to showcase your resilience and commitment to your customers.

But what about B2B? At times like these, it’s easy to assume that B2B buyers are purely driven by logic and data. But they’re not immune to the anxieties of economic uncertainty. They’re facing the same challenges as everyone else – rising costs, supply chain disruptions, and pressure to make the right decisions for their businesses.

Businesses want to believe that their chosen solution will not only solve their immediate problems, but also contribute to their long-term success. They want to feel good about the companies they partner with, knowing they share the same values and can be trusted to deliver on their promises. Your messaging needs to acknowledge these feelings and offer reassurance.

In uncertain economic times, your messaging needs to meet your audience where they are. It’s a balance between acknowledging the difficulties and offering solutions.

• Don’t shy away from what’s going on. It’s no secret, and customers are feeling it whether you acknowledge it or not. When you do acknowledge your audience’s concerns and show that you are there to support them, that makes a connection.

• Then, focus on solutions. While acknowledging the challenge is important, don’t dwell on negativity. Shift the focus to solutions and how your products or services can help customers navigate the current climate. Highlight the value you offer and how you can make their lives easier or their businesses more successful.

• Reinforce your brand’s stability, reliability, and long-term commitment. This could involve highlighting your history, your growth over the years, your values, or even your customer service.

• Don’t be shy about your values. People want to do business with companies that share their values. Communicate these values clearly and authentically, and show how these values play out day-to-day – how you source your products ethically, the extra mile you go to do quality work, your commitments to sustainability, your amazing company culture, your patriotism, and so on.

At this point, it’s safe to say there is no historical period that perfectly mirrors our current situation. We can draw comparisons to certain events, certain figures, certain policies and actions and reactions – but the combination of factors at play here is unprecedented.

But, really, that’s the case with every recession. We’ve been through more than a few of them since the advent of ‘marketing’ as we know it, and no two have been close to being exactly alike. Different factors, different people, different outcomes.

Yet there is still a clear pattern when it comes to the benefits and the risks of cutting back on marketing during a recession – whether it’s the Great Depression, the Great Recession, the COVID-19 pandemic, or anything in between:

Businesses that stand firm will reap the benefits when the recession is over.

Let’s travel back to 1981, shall we?

Before the Great Recession, the 1981-1982 recession was the worst economic downturn the U.S. had seen since the Great Depression.

Following a decade of rising inflation, high unemployment, and a stagnant economy, the Feds rolled out new monetary policies designed to aggressively curb inflation. As a result, businesses drastically cut capital expenditures and cancelled investments in new equipment, factories, and tech.

Manufacturing industries, particularly those sensitive to interest rates (like auto manufacturers), were hit the hardest.

By late 1982, unemployment had grown from 7.4% to a peak of nearly 11%. For auto workers, it hit 24%.

Consumer spending hit the floor.

Many businesses saw no choice but to cut back or even abandon their marketing and advertising entirely. It felt like common sense. Why advertise when it seems like no one’s buying?

Like all downturns, this one didn’t last forever. By the summer of 1983, the recession was officially over. Output and spending were back to normal, pre-downturn levels.

Here’s where things get interesting.

A landmark study by McGraw-Hill Research, which analyzed 600 companies from 1980 to 1985, revealed an important insight: businesses that maintained or increased their advertising spend during that recessionary period saw significantly higher sales growth by 1985 (256% higher) than those that cut back.

Even with spending at an all-time low and unemployment at an all-time high, investing in marketing paid off.

While this research by McGraw-Hill is one of the most in-depth looks at marketing in a specific recession, we know this phenomenon isn’t unique to the 1981-82. We see it time and time again in examples across different downturns and in different industries, including:

• When COVID-19 forced people to stop travelling, VRBO and Airbnb responded in opposite ways. Airbnb scaled back its advertising, while VRBO increased its spending to $90.8 million. In the end, VRBO saw a 61% recovery in bookings while Airbnb’s bookings dipped by 15%.
• In the recession of the early 1990s, McDonald’s, then the biggest player in their industry, cut its advertising budget. Its sales declined by 28%. In the same period, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell both strengthened their advertising efforts and increased their sales by 61% and 40%, respectively.
• When the Great Depression hit, Post was the biggest cereal contender, and Kellogg’s was the up-and-comer. Post cut back on advertising. Kellogg’s doubled theirs. You can guess where this is going: Kellogg’s sales grew by 30%, and they leapfrogged Post as the industry leader.

Maintaining visibility and brand presence during uncertain and challenging times put those businesses in a much stronger position when the pendulum swung again. And, as hard as it is to picture it during challenging times like these, the pendulum always swings back.

This is a tough time to be in business. The uncertainty of it all can feel overwhelming, especially with customers, partners, and a team all counting on you. But that is also precisely why now is not the time to retreat.

History has shown time and again that those who maintain a strategic focus on marketing during downturns are the ones who emerge stronger. Take control of your narrative, connect with your audience, and show your resilience. The challenges are real, but so are the opportunities.

REM Web Solutions is here to help you develop a marketing strategy that positions your business for long-term success. Reach out today to start the conversation.