Driving growth in a flat economy: How to still hit your marketing objectives

Despite the recent news that Britain’s economy fell into a recession at the end of 2023, budget growth for UK marketing was at it’s strongest level in nearly a decade.

According to the latest IPA Bellwether report, though, we can be cautiously optimistic about the upcoming financial year.

Driving growth in a challenging economy

Marketers still face the challenge of driving leads, increasing brand awareness, and demonstrating return on investment (ROI) quickly.

In the constantly evolving marketing landscape, it’s hard to know which strategies will be most effective during a period of uncertainty.

You need to find a way to strengthen your position in the market. The answer is in finding new ways to leverage your data.

Read on for the strategies you can rely on to help you pull through a downturn and increase market share.

1. Use data to create a highly effective marketing strategy

Analysing data and spotting patterns in how customers behave is key for businesses to understand how people are using their products or services, and their customer journey.

But in a financial slump, this becomes absolutely vital.

Thankfully, there are many ways to get this valuable trend information. You can analyse your own customer data, run surveys and focus groups, or keep an eye on what’s happening on social media. And the best part? You can start using these methods immediately.

Michael Morrell, CEO of Mediahawk, says: “By understanding changing customer behaviour patterns, businesses can make informed decisions about product development, marketing strategies, and overall business operations.

“Additionally, identifying customer trends can also help businesses anticipate and adapt to changes in the market. As we move through and out of an economic crisis, it’s vital that marketers continuously monitor customer behaviour over time to stay current with any changes in trends and adapt accordingly.”

2. Listen to what your customers are saying

There are many ways you can gain insight on what your customers are thinking and feeling, including social listening and market research. These can offer valuable insights you can use to maximise the effectiveness of your marketing campaigns.

But there’s another way you can gain this level of knowledge. Listen to those people who are already contacting you. This doesn’t mean you have to hire a team of people to analyse every phone call, however. Instead, this is where it’s key to invest in tools like speech analytics.

This will help you get a deeper understanding of the purpose and the outcome of every call, including:

• Gaining insights into the keywords used and questions being asked, so you can create content to address these on your site.
• Identifying keywords or phrases that come up time and time again (and convert), so you can assign additional budget to them to help boost your calls further.
• Segmenting your calls by keyword so you can easily see who is calling you and why and adjust if you need to. For example, if certain words result in customer service calls, you can prioritise your organic strategy to include these, and take them out of your paid ads.

Speech analytics software is automatic and intelligent, so you can get the benefits of these insights without dedicating your team to listening to calls. You can then use this information to inform your pay-per-click (PPC) and organic search strategy, by knowing what the trends and opportunities are, identifying gaps in your content, and seeing what words are used most often in calls that result in a sale.

You can also use this to help make your campaigns more targeted and cost effective, by creating relevant audiences and excluding others.

3. Invest in the right marketing analytics technology

The last few years has seen a huge shift in how we discover, research, and buy as consumers.

“Marketing analytics technology provides you with a distinct advantage when the economy is flat, by enabling you to understand how the journey has changed for your customers,” says Michael.

“Is the research phase longer? Are there shifts in the marketing channels your prospects are using? What touchpoints contribute to each stage of the journey, and has this changed?

“To truly understand your audience, you need to be able to see all their touch points with you, both online and offline. You need to know where they have come from, whether that’s organic search, social media, or an offline channel and then where they went onto. This helps you understand your customers’ concerns, as well as any barriers they face throughout the customer journey. Knowing all of this will help you optimise your campaigns to the channels that are driving the most growth towards your objectives.”

Innovations in technology have transformed the way forward-thinking businesses interact with their customers and can:

• Provide valuable insights into prospect and customer behaviour, preferences, and needs
• Optimise, automate, and personalise marketing campaigns
• Streamline workloads, reduce costs, and improve ROI.

On the surface, this may seem like an impossible task, with each channel often having its own tracking. This is where marketers need to invest in tools like call tracking.

This allows you to analyse both your online and offline data points together in one platform, giving you the full picture of your customer data.

Many of your competitors won’t be taking full advantage of this, leaving an open opportunity for you better understand the customer journey, reach a wider audience, and ultimately drive revenue growth.

“To truly understand your audience, you need to be able to see all their touch points with you, both online and offline. You need to know where they have come from, whether that’s organic search, social media, or an offline channel and then where they went onto. This helps you understand your customers’ concerns, as well as any barriers they face throughout the customer journey. Knowing all of this will help you optimise your campaigns to the channels that are driving the most growth towards your objectives.”
Michael Morrell, CEO, Mediahawk

Conclusion

During tough economic times, there’s greater pressure on marketers to deliver leads and ROI.

Using your data more effectively, ensuring that right audience are receiving the right message at the right time, listening to what your customers are saying, and investing in the right marketing analytics technology, are all key to helping you gain a distinct advantage that will help you achieve your marketing objectives.

Further reading: Learn more about how your data is key to helping your business survive and thrive in a difficult economy.