With all the press columns on credit crunches, rising utility prices, mortgage crises, slumping housing market and falling manufacturing output it seems that we are going to talk ourselves into a recession, even if the reality is a little different.

A recession is defined as two quarters negative growth in GDP, so whilst this hasn’t happened yet, we’re not in a recession.

That’s the good news.

The bad news is that many of your customers might be acting as if they are, so what can you do about it?

In any slowdown, advertising and other forms of push marketing drop. This is because when budgets are slashed, the channels with the least ability to measure marketing ROI are cut. However, at the same time spending on direct marketing grows, with research in the US showing that in the last six recessions since 1950 there was an increase in the spending on DM. Similarly, research by McGraw-Hill in the US showed that for business-to-business firms who maintained or increased their advertising expenditure during the recession of 1981-1982, they achieved significantly higher sales growth than those that eliminated or decreased advertising. And by 1985, those companies that advertised aggressively in the recession period grew their sales 2.5 times faster than those that reduced their spending.

So what should your b2b marketing focus be on during a recession?

Lead management – in a recession risk-adverse buyers take longer than normal to come to a purchase decision. You need to have a clear strategy for taking prospects through the awareness, interest and engagement stages of any potential sale.

Focus on existing customers – if you have less money to attract new business, invest more time in developing and building the relationships with your existing customers.

Sharpen your online marketing – build dedicated microsites and landing pages, optimised with keyword rich content, to provide more targeted, more relevant and more appropriate messages to visitors searching for your products and services.

Provide more added-value content – use white papers, best practice articles and thought leadership editorials to provide valuable information to potential prospects over and above your core offering.

Reduce barriers to purchase – as recession generally makes businesses more risk adverse, new and younger companies need to develop new ways of building trust and reassurance to avoid potential buyers sticking with safe or traditional options.

Accountability – don’t undertake any form of b2b marketing unless you can demonstrate the impact of the activity on sales pipeline and revenue.

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We help our clients communicate more effectively with theirs by improving the words on every piece of marketing activity they invest in. Whether it is words for a website, a piece of packaging, an advert, a brochure, a leaflet, an article, a presentation, a news release, a tender document, direct mail, emarketing or sales force aids, we help make it more targeted, more relevant, more appropriate and more persuasive.

We’ll be using this site to share some of the techniques and tips we use to help businesses communicate more efficiently and effectively.

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