In business and life, staying positive and looking on the bright side is important. But when it comes to looking at the economy right now, that can be a challenge. As the recession impacts businesses, many are reevaluating their operating expenses – including marketing.

Although marketers need to keep marketing, they do need to adapt their strategies for the current economy. Case in point: in my last blog, I shared why now is the right time for service businesses to modernize how they find new SMB prospects. Continuing off of that, below are three ideas that service businesses can use now to survive and even grow during rocky times.

•        Keep Your Customers Happy

Service businesses need to prioritize keeping the customers they already have happy. That starts with providing consistently excellent service and doubling down on the value you deliver but may also include offering more personalized or cost-effective solutions. Show your customers you understand them and their changing business needs. Not only does it help you retain valuable clients, but happy customers will be more receptive to additional offerings from you, providing opportunities for you to upsell or cross-sell new services.

•        Focus on Profitability

Costs are increasing. From the grocery store and gas pump to daily business expenses, many organizations are feeling the effects of the recession. These increasing costs mean your business needs to focus on increasing your own profitability.

It’s not just about cutting costs but rather shifting strategies. In a downturned economy, efficiency is the name of the game and technology can be an excellent tool. Consider incorporating AI and automation tools to streamline processes in areas such as billing, scheduling, support, and customer communication.

For your online presence, make sure your company is easy to find online and your value proposition is clear. Be present in the online places and channels where your customers and prospects go. After all, research shows that B2B buyers conduct up to 70% of their buying research online before contacting sales.

•        Adapt Your Strategy 

For your digital marketing strategy, focus on what you can do to generate revenue quickly and the channels offering cost-effective and measurable results. Email marketing, for example, is a trusted channel known for its high ROI (with some studies showing it earns upwards of $42 for every $1 spent).

And if your tried and true prospect demographics or firmographics aren’t biting anymore, consider looking into a new segment. Third-party B2B data can open the door to literally millions of new opportunities to find more business customers. At OMI, B2B customer acquisition is our specialty. We can work with you to identify your most ideal target audiences and explore new market segments using our massive third-party B2B contact database.

One of our most in-demand tools is intent monitoring, which tracks online buyer activity to uncover prospects looking for products or services like yours. From there, we match that intent data to our database to build an audience of prospective customer contacts who are actively in market – meaning they represent very warm leads.

The next step is to fuel new customer acquisition campaigns with the audience data. Our experience is that combining email marketing with digital display ads creates a powerful one-two punch to elevate results for these digital campaigns.

If you’re looking for more ideas or ready to jumpstart your downturn marketing, reach out to us today. Our team has expertise in planning, implementing and managing new customer acquisition campaigns, along with intent monitoring, audience building and much more.