If you're a B2B content marketer working in an industry experiencing an economic
downturn, you're right to worry, Not only may you be facing budget cuts
(or at least a budget freeze) on your side, you may face distribution and audience challenges
as well.
Layoffs Mean Fewer Prospects and Ways To Reach Them
Layoffs mean fewer people are getting your emails at their work addresses. It also means you
have fewer of your own employees to help amplify your content on
social media (especially
LinkedIn). It also means that whatever engagement you're getting on social media is now less
immediately valuable, because some of those people you thought still worked for your customers
are really unemployed and haven't told anyone yet.
The Leftovers Are Occupied
Those who didn't get laid off may be busier than they were before, either handling
extra workload created by layoffs, or polishing their resumes and scoping out other employers
(or both). Either way, employed people will likely have less time and less incentive to read
your content, no matter how you've been reaching them, or are trying to reach them.
There's Greater Reluctance To Spend
This particular issue manifests as two different problems: delayed spending and greater
spending scrutiny.
Delayed Spending Hurts the Top and Bottom of the Content Marketing Funnel
If your customers decide to hold on to their incumbent solution a little longer, they'll spend
less time searching for purchase-related keywords (thus hampering your
awareness and SEO).
Your
lead-gen content also won't convert as well
as it did before, or at least the quality of the leads it
generates will go down.
Greater Purchasing Scrutiny Strains the Middle
Customers who still intend to spend anyway will either delay talking to sales in favor of
learning on their own (something
already happening), or they'll
spend more time talking to sales than they did before, forcing
you to actually up your
consideration and sales
enablement content output in a stagnant economy.
And sorry, while sales enablement can be automated to some extent (via chatbots and whatnot),
a lot of the consideration content needed will be stuff
AI can't write.
What You Should Do
First of all, I absolutely do not advocate reducing your
content marketing spend in a recession, even
if you're reducing marketing spend in other areas, like events or other brand activations,
for five key reasons.
One, most companies don't spend enough on content even during the good times, which means a
reduction during the bad times can prolong them. Two, if your company is indeed reducing its
brand activation ground game, content becomes all the more important to staying on your
customers' radar, because how else are you going to do it?
Three, content is cheaper to make
during a recession, presenting an opportunity to get "caught up" in areas you've been
neglecting (more on this later).
Four, paid promotion is cheaper during a recession because your competitors are doing it
less. And five,
content marketing is already slow
burning by nature, which means you really
don't want to slow that burn any more during a downturn, because the audience just might
change the channel.
But despite what I've just told you, I don't recommend you just keep doing what you've been
doing. Some changes are probably needed.
Reduce Some of Your Lead-Gen
I chose this particular phrasing for a reason. If you're launching any new products into a
recession, you shouldn't neglect your lead-gen content efforts for them, because you'll
still need them (even if the full benefits will have to wait for a recovery).
However, if you have other, more general lead-gen efforts going on, or lead-gen efforts
for products that were launched before the downturn, those may be expendable.
Create Consideration Content
Pure
consideration content (which talks about
what you sell but doesn't ask for contact
details) tends to be neglected, even during the good times (because you're so busy trying to
get leads instead). So, as already suggested, it's probably a smart move to redirect some of
that former lead-gen budget a stage higher in the funnel.
Focus on content that makes it easy to justify a purchase. Case studies. Testimonials. RoI
calculators.
Also focus on making it easier for prospects to find media coverage (product reviews) and
analyst coverage that does the same while they're on your website. In other words, make sure
your consideration content links to third-party stuff. Don't force prospects to go to Google
to find it, because who knows what they'll find there?
Alter Your Awareness Profile
Don't forget that if you do create some of that aforementioned consideration content, you'll
also need to create some awareness content that connects to it (so that more people find it). And
this should be
content that discusses specific
problems your solutions solve (as opposed to
industry news or
thought leadership).
And if your brand serves multiple industries, consider going broader and more high-level with
some of your awareness content. In other words, create and promote content that's useful to
all the industries you serve, as this'll be a more efficient use of your resources.
For any industry-specific awareness content you're still creating, remember two of the
items I mentioned earlier. Some of your target audience is unemployed, and those that are
still employed are busier.
For the former, instead of offering knowledge about problems employers are having, offer
knowledge that makes them more employable (like courses) and promote it on social media
(where prospects may still be following you).
For followers who are still employed, instead of solely creating awareness content meant
to steer customers to buying a new solution, create content that educates them about how to
stretch their current solution a little longer (if appropriate), or how to make do with
reduced budgets or less people.
And consider reducing the frequency of your emails while you're at it. These people are
busy.
Create Company-Focused Content
During a recession, it might not hurt to allocate some spend to content that doesn't serve a clear
marketing function but that still serves the company, because there's another audience to
consider as the recession starts to ease -- jobseekers.
Create some content about your company, why people would want to work there, your CSR activity,
etc. This is all stuff that tends to be neglected during the good times. So get it done now when
your content people are less likely to be busy with ad hoc requests or tradeshow support.
Repurpose Content Into Branded Assets
Marketing orthodoxy says you should build your brand in a recession so you recover faster and
better weather the next one. Brand building through content is best done through glossy
content
assets
(PDF content, social media visuals, slickly-produced videos, etc.).
A nice whitepaper or ebook with a supporting digital campaign is the prototypical way to
do this, but that costs money.
Repurposing content you already have is best when a recession has your budget in a bind. Convert
suitable blogs (like any Ultimate Guides you might have) into attractive PDFs.
Go back to your shapeless lockdown-era subject matter expert (SME) talking-head content and see what
can be re-edited into something slicker. See if any of your shorter blogs can be adapted into a
script and read on camera. These sorts of things.
Get better at repurposing content during the hard times and you'll retain this skill when things
pick up, potentially driving both brand benefits and sales benefits down the road.
Of course, the advice offered so far has largely been for a hypothetical business. If you need
specific guidance about how to navigate your ship through stormy waters, just reach out
here.
