No one expected the level of detriment Covid-19 would have on the global and domestic economy. It’s fair to say that all businesses are scrambling right now trying to adjust to new practises for trading between alert levels. Managing your outgoing costs whether it's rent, salaries and other bills will be tough but keeping your brand alive during this time will be key for your long-term goals. Maintaining brand awareness is essential to keep your brand top of mind and when demand starts to grow again you want to be the first choice for customers.
Building a brand to gain momentum, trust, recognition from consumers requires long term dedication. Although these times are tough and finances are tight, you don’t want to give this up and start the relationship with your customers all over again. We've learned from past recessions that companies that maintained their ad budget during a recession benefitted in the long-term.
We all know that with a recession comes deflation this includes advertising costs. Use this opportunity to take advantage of low advertising costs and continue with your brand marketing at a bare minimum. Digital platforms like Google Ads and Mail Chimp can be a simple and cost-effective way to continue with brand awareness campaigns. Here are some of our recommendations:
If you’re not already, you should be running a search campaign in Google Ads bidding on just your brand and brand terms. Bidding on your brand allows you to dominate search engine results, control your messaging and defend your position in SERP if other competitors are bidding on your brand. Not only is it best practise but it also has a low cost-per-click being your own brand term and we’ve seen proven return on ad spend here at Insight.
YouTube Video Ads don’t need to be high production or costly. YouTube Director assists you with in house production video ads and they even say the best camera to use is the one you’re comfortable with - your smartphone. Well known to have low cost-per-views and underutilised by New Zealand companies right now, this is a great way to keep up your brand awareness at a low cost. Although there are strengths and weaknesses with YouTube Advertising, from our experience the pros definitely outweigh the cons.
Running Facebook campaign ads can often become a money pit, but on the other hand, boosting your posts on Facebook can be quick, effective and of course low cost. When boosting a post you need to set a budget where Facebook can distribute it on the running days set at a minimum of $1 a day, meaning you can set a budget as low as $7 for 7 days. We’ve found that boosting posts at $50 for 14 days have been most effective for us in terms of clicks and impressions attracted.
Email direct marketing (EDM) is a great platform to communicate with your existing loyal customers. It’s important to remember that “loyal customers are the primary, enduring source of cash flow and organic growth”. So nurturing them and reminding them about your brand is essential for stability in revenue. Most EDM platforms are free with basic levels of utilisation and advanced packages for extra features are set at affordable prices. We recommend using Mail Chimp, it’s simple to use with easy reporting. If you need assistance with your marketing strategy going forward don’t hesitate to contact us!
