Don't Cut Your Marketing Budget in Shreds During a Recession - Use These 3 Cost-Cutting Measures Instead.

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Since Sam and Diane, Rachel and Ross or Jim and Pam, there hasn't been this much "will it or not" commotion. I'm talking about the recession, of course. Even the Wall Street Journal isn't quite sure if we're there, heading for it, or going to miss it by inches. Yes, we are seeing rising interest rates and inflation, but the discussion continues as to whether or not this is a record high.

But the answer doesn't really matter. Now is the time to plan for the recession, even if this particular recession does not come. Planning not only helps you weather the economic hardships of a full-blown recession, but also provides a handy reference when your marketing budget is tight.

To be honest, things are not looking good for next year's budgets. In response to a survey of CFOs conducted by Gartner in May 2022, 39% of respondents said they would cut costs if inflation persisted and the last quarter of 2022 looked bad, which it did. And CFOs aren't the only ones taking proactive steps. Major companies such as Google, Goldman Sachs and Wayfair recently announced hiring slowdowns and job cuts, with Google laying off around 12,000 workers on January 20.

What about marketing? Are marketing teams destined to do more with less in 2023 and perhaps beyond? It seems so. More than 4 in 10 marketers told Deloitte that they are cutting back on spending due to inflationary pressures. This is not shocking news. Marketing initiatives often feel the pain first, especially when the word “recession” is thrown around. But it's a mistake that can happen to a company.

Without marketing, it is almost impossible to generate new business. Of course, cuts can be made. However, they must be done strategically so that the organization can succeed - and perhaps even thrive - during downturns.

As a Harvard Business Review retrospective on three previous global recessions concluded, the 9% of companies that thrived shared one thing in common: All survivors were able to find the middle ground between tightening their marketing budgets and knowing where and when to invest in marketing tactics.

How can your business weather the recession with effective marketing strategies?

Related: It's Easy to Slash Your Marketing Budget in a Turbulent Economy, But It's a Bad Idea. Here's how to save money on your PR strategy.

Recession planning starts with understanding the fragility of your marketing strategy. Specifically, which marketing strategies would stop working the moment you stopped feeding them cash and which would still give you leads for a few months?

Let's say you spend $10,000 each month on pay-per-click and get 100 leads in return. The moment you turn off your PPC campaigns, you will lose 100 leads. However, you could also spend $4,000 paying a company to handle your SEO and get you to the first page of Google for a handful of keywords. If you stop working with this provider, you won't immediately see a drop in search engine page rankings (although it will probably happen ev...