Should I Cut My Marketing Budget During A Recession?

Focus on what delivers results

You will want to make sure you cut out any waste. It is important to focus your marketing efforts on what can be measured and delivers results. For this reason, we are looking to digital channels to work harder for us to produce a return on investment to the business owner. We are also being very careful with the use of traditional activities, such as events, sponsorship, and generic media advertising.  We are focussing on digital marketing that delivers sales results and therefore cash to the business owner. Digital marketing also makes it easier to control your marketing spend.

7 Things You Need Before You Start An Online Store.

Business owners realise the world has changed, and that selling products and services online are essential if they are to thrive in business.

Should I use an online market or build my own website?

There are many ways to sell your products over the internet. Ecommerce platforms like Trademe, Amazon, and eBay offer a large number of potential buyers, but you are one of the thousands of sellers who can promote their products. These online markets take a cut of your profits and you have less control over the way your product is sold and how your brand is shown. The alternative to selling in an online market is building your own online shop within your website. 

There are some big benefits to having your own website and online store:

𐄁 You get a bigger share of the profit.

𐄁 You have more control over how the whole shopping experience is managed.

𐄁 Your customers won’t see any competitors on your website. A brand well-known in a local market is more likely to be searched for first, rather than going to some other online market.

𐄁 You also get to own an asset that should increase in value over time.

Many businesses use their online shop as a way of reaching new customers or to supply customers who have visited their physical store and now want to purchase remotely. The downside of starting your own store is that the setup costs might be higher at first. It may also take time to get customers through the online door, so you will need to invest in promoting your site and building up following overtime.

Ecommerce options for your own website to consider

There are a variety of online selling options available for your own website. Some of the more common ones are Shopify, Magento, and WordPress using WooCommerce. They all have their pros and cons and a discussion of which one is best is beyond the scope of this article. So I want to discuss the platform that I am most familiar with and recommend the most, and that is WordPress, using the WooCommerce plugin. WooCommerce sits inside a WordPress site to provide the basic shop system for selling products, allowing you to select a product, adding it to a shopping cart, creating an order collecting customer details. It will notify you when a sale is made and gives you a way of managing the process.

Don’t try to build an eCommerce website on your own

Some clever people can set it up themselves but in my experience, they are very rare. So my advice is to partner with Downing as we are experienced in setting up ecommerce. We will help you with the process of bringing it all together.

Don’t propose to your customers on the first date.

Getting a customer to buy isn’t the end of the process. How you deliver your product or service will determine how your customer feels about their experience. Great communication is essential at this stage – particularly for big-ticket items or service-based business. It’s important for customers to feel like their expectations have been met and for you to address anything that wasn’t quite right.

If there is an issue with your service delivery or product, you have the opportunity to turn customers around from what could be a negative experience into a positive experience. This can only happen if you can communicate well and effectively resolve the problem.

If you’ve delivered well and supported your customer through their buying journey, you can expect to build a genuine fan! They’ll tell their friends, engage on social media, and share their positive experiences. They can even begin to lead other customers through the purchasing journey.

When you introduce a new product, your advocates re-enter their purchase journey at a much later stage, because they already love working with you.

Remember that not everyone is ready to buy right away. Make sure you continue to build communication tools that help your customers move along their journey towards becoming an advocate and loyal fan of your business.

Recently, my Personal Trainer decided that I should do excessive amounts of weightlifting in a short period of time. Towards the end of the last set I couldn’t do it. My arms were screaming like a choir of feral cats. I stopped short of getting to the target number of lifts and dropped the dumbbells to the ground. “I hate failing.” “Perfect,” he said. “The idea is that you fail at the end. That means you have burnt up all the energy in your arms and completely pushed yourself to the limit. You have burnt up more fat and added more strength than if you hadn’t done this.” he advised me. “Great, so I’m a successful failure” I said.

It got me thinking, how much do we hold back so we don’t fail? How good could we be if we push ourselves to the point of failure, learn our limits, and then get back up again and carry on with renewed knowledge and confidence? Failure can be a better teacher than success.

I am not advocating reckless actions and taking risks for the sake of it. But what would happen if we pushed ourselves further to find out if we have a good idea or initiative?

It’s ok to fail at the gym, it’s a safe place to fail in. Not too much is at stake. But what about advertising? Advertising can be costly and failure can be expensive. Is there a safe place to be a successful failure in advertising?

A history of failure to win

Claude Hopkins was one of the successful great grandfathers of advertising. He was a big advocate of experimental advertising. He would take his best performing advertising and beat it with incremental improvements. Claude called it Scientific Advertising. It was a process of success and failure. He risked failure in small amounts to create more successful and effective advertising. He said “It is not uncommon for a change in the headline to multiply returns from five to ten times over”. Sometimes changing a few words around in your headline can have a huge impact on the number of sales and conversions. You have to test a few different headlines until you find something that converts well.

What Claude was doing over 100 years ago is now called A/B Split Testing. This approach is a bit like an ad contest. You show half of your customer audience one ad and the other half a slightly different ad. You eliminate the worst performing ad and then introduce another ad to try and beat the hero. The process goes on until your best ad is difficult to beat. You can then take your winning ad to a wider audience with a larger budget, with confidence.

Your safe place to fail

Today, digital advertising is the perfect platform for developing powerful advertising messages. It allows us to take lots of small risks without losing too much money. We can test one headline, offer or message against another. For example, when we run Facebook and Google advertising campaigns we test safe headlines against more risky ones with the aim of getting more attention and better results. We test one benefit against another, one offer against another and so on. We keep trying new (sometimes risky) headlines until we beat the existing headlines. We measure success as the number of people who take our desired actions (conversions). A desired action could be filling out a form, clicking a button, making a phone call or completing a purchase online. You have to be ready to fail to succeed with this approach, but in the long run, you win.

A/B testing can also be used on website pages to discover the most effective page to achieve your goals. You can test a multitude of factors. A good place to start is with testing the headline, page colour, main image, offer or call to action. You don’t want to test all these things at once. You choose one thing to change up and then check the results and then add another thing to change and so on.

Of course this thinking can be used in traditional advertising too. In fact, this is where the strategy was invented.

I once did a direct mail campaign for a bank targeting large commercial customers. As a first step, we were trying to test an offer to see what prize was more appealing to our audience. We sent one group the offer of the chance to win a holiday if they booked a meeting with a Bank Manager to discuss their finance. We offered the other group the chance to go in the draw to win cash. The cash prize won. We then went to a wider group with the cash prize draw offer and had a successful response.

A/B Testing can also be used when a team can’t decide on which ad should be run. There can be two or three strong ad ideas on the table and the team can’t decide which one is best. You don’t need to lose sleep over this. Put the ideas to the test on a small group and let the customers decide which is best before you roll it out to the bigger audience.

A process to follow:

1. Define your goal. What specific result do you want to improve?
2. Create the Challenger. Design the idea that you think will beat the current winning champion ad or web page
3. Prioritise the variables – Step two often delivers a number of possible ideas. Narrow it down to one thing to test.
4. Run the test
5. Measure the results and review
6. Start the process again

How does it work practically

If you are running the A/B test on a digital platform like Facebook or Google they make it easy to run multiple ad ideas. If you want to run the test on your website then most of the major website platforms have extra tools that allow you to do this. There is often more to setting this up than in Facebook or Google so you may need the assistance of a Web Developer to do this. If you wanting to use traditional media to run split test then you will need to use other strategies like coupon codes and offers where you have to enter a code to allow you to track and measure the results.

Gmail Users

1. Select contacts from the Gmail dropdown menu on the left-hand side of your Gmail Inbox.
2. Select add to contacts from the top menu bar.
3. Enter the email address.
4. Select Add.

If an important email is in the Spam folder, you can mark it Not Spam to whitelist it. If you have any issues, try visiting the Gmail support page.

Microsoft Outlook 2003/2007/2016 Users

1. Open your email message.
2. Click on Junk in the taskbar.
3. Click on Junk E-mail Options from the drop-down menu.
4. Click on the Safe Senders tab.
5. Enter the email address you want to save.
6. Click on Add Sender to Safe Senders List.
7. Click Apply.
8. Click OK.

If you have any issues, try visiting the Microsoft support page.

Outlook 2016 with Clutter enabled

These emails are being moved into the Clutter folder.

1. Choose the Clutter folder.
2. Select the email in the Clutter folder.
3. Drag the email from your Clutter folder to your Inbox.

Moving an email in or out of the Clutter folder from any of your devices is enough to give the signal to the Clutter system that an item is or isn’t Clutter.

If you have any issues, try visiting the Clutter support page.

Apple Mail users

1. In the message list, select the sender you want to make a VIP.
2. Click the sender’s name or email address in the message header, then select VIP.

If you have any issues, try visiting the Apple support page.

More resources: https://support.getpalace.com/hc/en-us/articles/115009404168-How-to-White-List-Unblock-your-Email-address

Should I have a social media page instead of a website — or both?

Social media restricts how you can set out content and information. While your page will be unique to your brand, it will have the exact same layout and design as every other brand. A website allows you creative freedom to show off your brand through a multitude of avenues.

A website allows you to not only sell your product or service but also sell ad space to generate revenue. This is not always an option through social media platforms.

On many social media platforms, your page statistics are visible for anyone to see. This can be great, but also detrimental if you haven’t yet built up a large following. The more followers you have, the more likes you will receive. Your website’s statistics are your own. You’re free to do with them what you will, and your audience doesn’t know how many visitors your site has each month.

Social media pages need you to read through the content to find out what the brand is and what they do. A website gives you control of what you want your audience to see and can provide them with all the information they need quickly. Your website may also increase perceived credibility to your brand.

Social media allows you to easily interact with your audience. Yet, if people stop engaging with your posts as much and visit your page less, social media algorithms may remove your content from the feed. A website makes it a lot harder to build and engage audiences, but you’re not going to lose engagement due to algorithms.

On social media your competitors are everywhere. There’s more content on social media than anyone has time to read or view. If your content isn’t the most engaging thing in someone’s NewsFeed they’re going to scroll right past it. A website is your own territory. If someone is on your site, they’re there to see you. Keeping them on your website and engaging with them is your next challenge.

We aren’t saying you shouldn’t have a social media page for your brand at all, but it’s not going to be enough on its own. A website is a necessity. Both – working together – are great! Your website should be the ‘hub’ of your online presence, whereas social media platforms should be used as a marketing tool for your brand. This way, you’re in control of your brand and what you want your audience to see. Use social media as a tool to drive traffic back to your website and engage with your brand.

Throw on your apron, crank the gas and open a bottle of Marlborough Pinot Noir — here are some business cards that belong in a Michelin restaurant, not in a wallet.

New Zealand King Salmon (NZKS) produce a unique breed of Chinook salmon called Ora King. Chefs love Ora King salmon because they are the best. The best taste, texture, colour and size. NZKS approached Downing to create a new set of business cards that looked so good you could eat them. We collaborated with them to come up with the idea of cards that looked like salmon.

To say these cards are complex would be an understatement — hold your breath because we’re about to get technical…
For the back of the cards, we printed black ink for the scales on Curious Metal stock, then embossed the scales for texture. We then ran a Spot U.V. overprint on the scales to make them glisten. On the front, we letter-pressed the Ora King logo onto Curious Skin stock and with digitally printed details. We then laminated the two stocks together and edge painted the cards with orange ink.

Phew!

This was new territory. The printers claimed that we were ‘pushing the envelope of what was possible for a business card’. Even so, they worked hard to create a set of cards that Ora King could be proud of. It’s great when you have suppliers who know and love their craft.

When stacked, these cards look like a cut piece of King salmon, and if you listen closely you can hear them sizzle.

If you’ve Googled your brand’s website lately, you’ve probably noticed something. Perhaps your listing used to be near the top of the search results or at least made the first page. Now, it’s halfway down the page, or doesn’t even make the cut! What gives?

Over the past several years, Google has made a lot of changes to the Search Engine Results Page (SERP), slowly adding more and more features that optimise the user experience. Information has never been easier to find. People want to know the age of a specific public figure? Instead of having to go to their Wikipedia page, Google will provide it in a ‘featured snippet’ or information card. Want to find restaurants nearby? Google will give you a list with reviews attached.

Why is Google getting harder? 

While these features make it easier for the consumer to find information, they’ve made it much harder for businesses to achieve organic listings, and thus, organic traffic to their website. If you search up your brand’s general industry, you’ll likely find two paidlistings, a local pack, map, or a knowledge graph, before finally reaching the organic listings – already halfway down the page!

Consumers can usually distinguish between paid listings and organic listings, however, there is still a portion of people that will ultimately click on a paid listing instead. And ads are becoming more expensive and difficult to spot. Where they once had a yellow ad icon beside them, the icon is now much less prominent, making it look more like an organic listing at a glance.

It’s not your ranking that’s the problem. More than likely, your ranking has remained fairly consistent over the past few years, even if your listing has moved down the page. It’s because while rankings are fairly resistant to change, your placement on the SERP page isn’t. Depending on what someone searches, different SERP features may appear for them, which will affect your listing’s position on the page.

Thankfully, there is a way you can still achieve great amounts of organic traffic. How? By not focusing on beating Google.

Play a different game

The fact is, you can’t truly beat Google at their own game. If SERP listings is a game of chess, Google is a chess grandmaster and everyone else is an amateur at best or doesn’t even know how to play.

What you can do is play a different game. We have found that people will often search Google for brand names they know rather than generic product categories. Customers want to find out more info about the brands they are buying. Things like what ingredients you use and where they come from, what is your sustainability policy or what sort of service and support you provide?

If your branding is strong and effective, your target audience will search for your specific brand name. If you can make your brand known and remembered outside of Google, consumers will choose you over your competition – without having to look at a SERP page filled with ads, maps and reviews.

Build your brand

Building a strong brand is the key to success. Harness strong ownership over your brand’s creative elements, and work on communicating with your target audience in the most effective way. Determine what makes your brand different from your competition; what unique offer or story your brand can give consumers that makes you stand out. Establish what your target audience wants, and how you can give it to them.

Tips to build a brand outside of Google

• Email lists are very effective for connecting with your audience without relying on Google. Email lists are like a pneumatic tube of sorts from which your content is sent straight to your audience in a neat little package.
• Create content that solves a problem for your audience. Great quality content will keep people interested in what your brand has to say, and make them want to keep listening.
• Social media is a great avenue for which to build the story of your brand, and communicate with your audience directly.

We are not saying, give up on trying to get higher rankings on Google. We are saying, rather, don’t focus on beating Google at a game you can’t win. Focus on building a powerful brand, with effective marketing so people come to Google with your name in their mind already.

Brands that have a clear purpose and a deeper meaning are very attractive and resonate with their customers with authenticity.