NEWS

Every month we are asked whether it makes sense to (continue to) invest in marketing in times of crisis (corona, economy, energy, etc.).
Some clients find it just an opportunity to be more visible in times of crisis, others put their finger on the marketing button out of sheer necessity.
There is something to be said for both!
You won’t hear us preaching for one or the other.

One thing is certain: whether it will be monkeypox, a major environmental disaster or an invasion of aliens: the crisis mode you are in as an entrepreneur is permanent!
Get used to it … but as Darwin said: it is not the fittest that survives, but rather the one that can adapt best and fastest to new circumstances.
Therefore, we would like to give you some tips & tricks to make your marketing strategy and policy resilient to the ever-changing circumstances.

Burst & recency

Organize your marketing plan or calendar according to the burst & recency philosophy: short, powerful burst moments in which you strike out with your marketing budget and push a commercial spearhead into the market.
A big campaign with a lot of reach and impact.
You can plan these burst moments … but also postpone or even cancel them (= flexibility).
The recency portion of your plan includes a continuous marketing effort that generates reach at a lower level with lesser impact, but continuous impact.
In doing so, you ensure a permanent presence with your target audience.
The budget for the recency portion will be a lot lower per day than the burst campaigns, but on an entire year will be close to the burst budget.
In theory, you should allocate a budget for the recency portion that you never save, even in times of crisis.

Contract terms with marketing partners

If you work with an agency or freelancers, negotiate well the terms regarding pausing, delaying or stopping support and spending the media budget.
Asking 100% flexibility from your partners will always come at a cost, but it will not make you regret it and will cost less money in the kering.
Your partners also have terms with their vendors and pay for that flexibility too!

Cancellation terms

You can always try to get force majeure (crisis) in the contract as a reason for cancellation of support.

Freelancers

An in-house, permanent team of marketing staff offers many benefits, but flexibility in cost is not really one of them.
A healthy mix of permanent employees and freelancers on your marketing team does offer this.
You can give freelancers fewer assignments for a while or renegotiate the cost.

Monitor the right and all relevant metrics

During a crisis, people often revert to monitoring commercial metrics: sales, revenue, margin, production, leads, etc.
These are also the first ones that are usually impacted.

But equally important to track are your strategy metrics: brand awareness, market share, customer satisfaction, R.O.I. and others.
You will find that a crisis does not immediately mean that you are regressing on these metrics.
Sometimes you do generate less revenue, but at a higher margin.

If you monitor these two types of metrics well, you will find that your marketing strategy and spending (hopefully) have a positive impact on both (otherwise you urgently need to change your marketing strategy).
And possibly that’s why it’s just not so smart to abruptly reduce your marketing spend?

Subscriptions

A significant cost in marketing is tools & software (Semrush, Hubspot, ActiveCampaign, etc).
Just like a leasing contract, you cannot simply discontinue this and thus save budget.

Many of these tools entice you with a nice discount if you take an annual subscription, but sometimes it can be more interesting to subscribe by the month or quarter, just for the sake of flexibility.

Stick to your strategy

What really costs money is to deviate from your strategy in times of crisis, this out of pure opportunism to save the furniture.
Your strategy should be your safety net and offer solutions or at least light at the end of the tunnel.
If you are not comfortable with this, then you may need to further strengthen or refine your strategy.

Stay consistent, change often costs more money

Any kind of change ultimately costs money, directly or indirectly.
If you change marketing partners in times of crisis, there is a lead-in time, learning fees to pay and no absolute guarantee of success from the new partner.
You may not want to add this cost during a crisis unless it is an absolute necessity.

If you shut down campaigns during a crisis, your campaign loses value day after day in the form of data loss.
This data loss will have to be recompensed later, when you restart the campaign … and that costs money.

In conclusion, when the shit really hits the fan … you have no choice but to take drastic action!