Media is proclaiming an economic recession in the offing. Under this cloud, marketers are being advised to build assets, not campaigns…hopefully, demonstrating a better use of funds. However one interactive marketer wrote,

‘Budgets are tight in light of the economic conditions as you surmise, but [the budget for social applications] has not been impacted. Interactive in general has been more protected than other comm areas and saw an increase.”

These same arguments apply to some other forms of online marketing, including search ads and email marketing. Those are going to be good investments in a recession. If you’re smart, you’ll position yourself now with proof your apps are working. Then when the ad dollars get tight, you’ll be in good shape.

In certainly appears that social media marketing fits well into the grand scheme of things. In discussing why social application will thrive in a recession, Josh Bernoff wisely writes

“If your social application doesn’t have a measurable output, you’d better get one. But if it does — if it generates leads, or conversions, or buzz, or something useful — then you can prove it’s working. beinggirl.com is four times as effective as TV ads, Procter & Gamble told us. That won’t get cut in a recession. But social applications are about consideration, not awareness.

Blogs, word of mouth, social networks . . . they’re about people connecting with other people. Basically, in a recession, the consideration phase is more important than awareness — and that’s where advertising flops and social applications succeed.’ No doubt social media is here to stay. We encourage you to make the best of this tremendous platform.

And then we have Bryan Eisenberg who sites three steps you can take to make your online marketing recession proof:

1. Turn your analytics into customer insight. It’s not enough to get reports. Each click is an action taken by a real person. Learn why your customers do what they do on your site.

2. Turn your insight into action. If customers leave your site or landing pages, theorize as to why, then test variations to confirm or refute your insight based on step one.

3. Rinse and repeat. Don’t become a victim of a recession; instead use it as an opportunity to take control of the things you can and jack up your conversion rate.

Also on this topic, see David Armano’s post on 10 ways digital can help you thrive in a recession.

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 8th, 2008 at 8:10 am and is filed under Communication, Social Networks, Technology, social media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.