The Three Ms of Internet Marketing During a Down Economy: Message, Mobility + Metrics

Any type of marketing during a recession poses multiple problems. How can you get the most out of a small budget? How can you connect with customers wary of making purchases? How can you increase the probability of success?

The following article addresses specific methods B to B marketers can use to get the most value out of their Internet Marketing budgets.

MESSAGE
The key messages to emphasize during a recession often revolve around safety. This means creating messaging that speaks to ‘reducing risk’, such as reliability, time-tested, value and ROI. During good times, some marketers have been shameless in trying to scare people into purchasing a product/service but when times are bad emphasizing benefits that protect against failure is warranted.

Understanding ‘the problem’ potential customers have is the basis for developing the message, whether it’s specific to the features of a product/service or the overall economic climate a company is operating in.

MOBILITY
Mobility here refers to the portability of a concept or campaign. Being able to re-use an e-mail campaign as a blog post, trade show hand out, or application brief on a website can stretch your marketing dollar. This is just like getting more by recycling or re-using. You could even think of it as ‘greening’ your marketing by getting the most out of your resources such as copywriting, photography and creative concepts.

METRICS
The secret sauce of Internet marketing. The tool that defends, when management wants to cut marketing budgets. The place to look for the answer to the persistent questions - Will this work? Will we get more leads? Will we sell more product?

Analyzing metrics is never easy though. There are always variables that make apples to apples comparisons difficult. It takes a certain ability to read the tea-leaves, to really know if an e-blast will generate more leads than a Google AdSense buy. But it’s necessary and hard, but really, really important. Not only viewing, but honing the reports to get the valuable data, the actionable analysis. This requires regularly tweaking reporting tools and making sure variables don’t get out of hand.

But once the data is in then voila! It becomes clear what programs work better than others. Then milk it for all it’s worth. Sales will be happy, management will be happy and you will be happy, even during a down economy.

Learn more about our affordable Internet marketing and how we can help your business by setting up a free consult with BI.

*featured image from iconfinder.com, Jozef Krajcovic.