With difficult times ahead and more threats of economic crisis looming…

It’s common for brands to consider reeling in the Marketing and Advertising Spend.

What a mistake. 

Time and time again throughout history, brands who continued to advertise during times of downturn emerge stronger than ever versus their tight-belted competitors.

Why?

As the market reels in spending and cuts what it sees as a ‘cost-center’, the gates are left wide open for those who see the opportunity to capture attention and increase market share.

McGraw Hill studied over 600 companies and their advertising habits from a wide range of industries.

Some maintained or increased their advertising spend, and others who cut or reduced it from 1980 to 1985. 

Their findings were crystal clear: companies who continued to advertise during the two-year recession saw 256% higher sales than their counterparts post-recession.

Those who chose not to advertise during the economic slump saw virtually 0% market share increase and a rise in sales of only 18% once the economy regained traction highlighting the importance and value of continuing to invest in advertising throughout times of hardship.  

In times of uncertainty and penny-pinching, it’s also very important to adjust your tone and messaging accordingly to be conscious of the consumers thoughts, feelings and sentiments.

That way you can continue to nurture your customers and strengthen your messaging in order to retain more loyal customers for years to come.

This is the time to speak about the shared values you have, provide a solution to their problem and solidify their loyalty with a little something extra that makes you stand out from the competition. 

What do people want now?

Peace of mind that the product they are buying will help them without damaging the Earth or harming anyones well-being.

3 Keys To Help Make It Through

• Continue spend on advertising & marketing to maintain awareness while competition make cuts

• Shift focus from solely Acquisition to Retention stage of the funnel

• Implement a proud and loud sustainability statement that future-proofs your brand

With the increasing need to adapt and diversify, the acquisition marketer is outdated.

Introducing the Sustainable Growth Marketer

Here’s 7 reasons why you need one:

1. A growth marketer will look beyond the top of the funnel and also focuses on nurturing, retaining and ascending customers as well as acquisition. A sustainable growth marketer, however, goes even further and focuses more deeply on incorporating impact messaging into the brand’s communications throughout the customer journey.
   

2. Data-driven decision making. A growth marketer combines knowledge of data and direct response principles to uncover profitable insights and drive higher performance from assets. Using the appropriate analytics tool to dive deep into the patterns in your data to find out which growth strategies work best and where to optimise mean less time wasted on pointless tests and more resources for what works. 
   

3. Invested in the Product. A sustainable growth marketer should share the brand's ethos and values and therefore be invested in the growth and development of both the brand and its impact. Gone are the days of selling fast-pace crap that no one needs and just ends up in landfill. Marketers hold great power over consumer behaviour and so should have integrity and ethics when it comes to how products are communicated.
   

4. Optimisation at every stage of the funnel. Another key role for any Growth Marketer is full-funnel optimisation to pinpoint the key drivers of results at every stage of the customer journey, before then improving performance further through various forms of quantitative and qualitative testing.
   

5. Create content that converts. A sustainable Growth Marketer will get to know your audience: their needs, their fears, their desires, etc. and be able to produce captivating copy that speaks directly to their pain-points. By creating informative, value-led content and communicating a solution fit for the audience, a sustainable growth marketer can not only boost your conversion through powerful copy but also reduce return rates meaning happier customers and a happier planet. 
   

6. Creating High Converting Email Campaigns. As part of the customer research process, a Growth Marketer will design email flows personalised to each stage of the customer journey filled with useful information and engaging brand details to help solidify customer loyalty. A Sustainable Growth Marketer will also use this as an opportunity to share your brands impact efforts. Because, let’s face it, owning up to the responsibility you have as an ecommerce brand to our Home Planet, is definitely worth shouting about! 
   

7. Paid Ad Campaigns. Anyone who has tried running their own ads on socials will tell you its best left to the pros! Tides are constantly changing with iOS updates and algorithm changes, and despite there always being a risk involved, you’re always going to want to keep wasted spend to a minimum by having a Growth Marketer on your team to help test and scale methodically. Having a sustainable Growth Marketer takes things to the next level by helping weave your brand’s story and impact messaging into your media buying and communications.

If you’re looking to grow your sustainable or Impact-driven brand to the next level, why not book a free call with us and find out how we can help scale sales to the next level? Click here to book a call.