How to make your advertising dollars count when you need it most

We’ve seen it happen before, and we’re seeing it again now – as the threat of recession looms and encroaches on business profit, owners react with fear and quickly withdraw expenditure wherever they can. 

One of the first things to go is often advertising spend, but this is rarely ever the best move to make. When times are difficult, it’s easy to let emotions take over and to make fear-based business decisions. 

However, in a downturn it’s more important than ever to rely on logic and data for your decision-making. With the right approach, your digital advertising can make the difference between scraping by and coming out strong. 

Let us help you be strong.

Why you should continue advertising in a recession

Evidence from past recessions shows that businesses who continued to advertise, or even increased their spend throughout the downturn, actually grew their revenue both during and after the recession – while those who went dark, faced harder and longer recovery times. 

  • McGraw-Hill Research looked at 600 companies from 1980-1985, and found those who continued to advertise throughout the 1981 recession had sales that were 256% higher by 1985 than those who went dark. 
  • In 2008, Millward Brown showed that 60% of brands that went dark for 6 months during an economic downturn saw a 24% decrease of brand use, and brands that cut at a higher rate risked greater loss.  
  • An IPA (Institute of Practitioners in Advertising) study in 2008 observed that “A brand judged to be on the way down because it has fallen silent will very rapidly see this manifested in word-of-mouth, which will accelerate the perception of failure”. 

Although every recession is different, there are a few reasons why we believe we’ll see the same outcomes for businesses who continue to advertise online throughout a downturn: 

  1. There are more eyes on screens right now than ever before

Digital media is booming as customers are consuming more content (and more frequently) while they’re stuck at home, combating boredom and isolation. While other forms of advertising are declining in effectiveness, digital advertising is only growing. 

  1. When other businesses withdraw advertising, there’s less competition

As your competitors withdraw their advertising, you’ll face less competition both for space and cost. Advertising therefore becomes cheaper for the few remaining businesses, while also providing increased opportunity for being seen – it’s a win-win. 

  1. Customers want confidence, reassurance and trust

In these unsettling times, customers are looking for business confidence, to know where to place their trust. Remaining visible online is a demonstration of strength and reassurance. Going dark, however, is a surefire way to lose the confidence you’ve worked so hard to build with your customers, and it could take a long time to regain it.

Advertise with confidence and the right approach

Holding onto confidence in a recession – from your customers and in yourself as a business – is key, but even more important for lasting results is how you approach your advertising. 

The practices you were used to before will need to change – now that every dollar counts more than ever, you need to know how to maximise each cent you spend. 

In ordinary times, you’d expect a decent return on your advertising investment, now, you have to demand it. Here’s how we’re helping our clients: 

  1. Focus your attention where it counts

In a recession, your margin for error is smaller. As your business makes narrower profit margins, it’s harder to financially justify a scattergun approach to digital advertising – throwing countless ads out at the world and hoping one or two stick. Use the data you have, find out what works, and focus on that. 

  1. Be agile with your strategy

As the world changes and your customer needs shift, you have to be ready to meet new demands. How are your customers consuming media right now? Where are they looking to spend their money? What is the most effective way to reach them? Be ready to change tack to stay on top. 

  1. Look for the highest return on your investment

Now is not the time to go wide with branding messages, it’s time to narrow down your strategy to ensure you’re getting the most bang for your buck by upping your conversion rate. In order to get a higher return on your advertising spend, turn to past data to see which avenues have consistently high conversion rates at a low cost, and capitalise on those. 

  1. Target your promos efficiently 

With your advertising creative, you need to be targeting customers who are already warm – showing intent to purchase – so less effort is required to pull in a sale and get higher success rates. Next, you want to give those customers a reason to buy now, with a limited time offer, low stock promotion, or other temptation to get them past the gate.

Make it count with Sprocket

As performance-driven digital marketers, we’re dedicated to getting results for our clients. In the past month, we’ve pushed ourselves to continue growing our clients’ businesses through digital advertising, even through the uncertainty and fear of Covid-19 and the lockdown. 

We’re confident in our ability to call on our past experience, in-depth knowledge, and creative strategies to carry our clients through the recession. 

Let’s take a look at how we’ve achieved this for a client:  

In late March, when the implications of the lockdown became apparent, we worked with a client to identify areas of opportunity based on recent historic data. This allowed us to pinpoint which products would be selling well over the lockdown period, and invest a larger share of budget into promoting those products. Our advertising had to change rapidly to address the lockdown situation and communicate the business’ operational status at both level 4 and level 3. 

This client is now consistently hitting all-time high year-on-year revenue figures, with March 2020 showing a 20% increase over March 2019.  

As new products are able to be sold (non-essential items), we have increased the overall budget for the campaign to ensure the clients’ share of voice isn’t impacted. Throughout this lockdown period, our client has seen digital become their primary sales generation tool, and is now investing more than ever into their digital advertising. 

Another of our clients has experienced a 331% increase in revenue since Covid-19 began, and yet another has been hitting a consistent 60:1 return on advertising spend throughout this period.

What does this show? That there’s light not just at the end of the tunnel but right here, right now. 

It’s possible to achieve results and gain customers even in a challenging situation like a nationwide lockdown and global pandemic. 

Remember that as with any downturn, it won’t be this hard forever. Every recession consists of three stages – the fall, the climb, and the growth on the other side. 

The fall we’re in at the moment may appear daunting, but don’t let doubt cloud your judgement. We’ve got the tools to climb back up, and every step we take now will help us grow stronger for the future.

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    With well over one hundred 5-star Google reviews, its safe to say we are the real deal. Client relationships and demonstratable results are our priority. If you'd like to know more, we'll even let you talk to some real clients.

    Daisuke Kirihara ★★★★★ I have been working with Sprocket for about 6 months, and the team has delivered outstanding results, giving us one of the best return for every dollar we spent through them. I have worked with digital agencies across Asia, Europe, and NZ over 15 years, but the ROI improvement I have seen Sophie and the team deliver is best in class. If you are a result-focused marketer who needs an agency to get you results, try letting them run your campaign. It worked great for us.Andrina Shieffelbein ★★★★★ Sprocket has been amazing for my small buisness! Can't recommend enough if you want results from your advertising!Glenn Walton ★★★★★ Good people with excerlent skills, lead generation and communication. Thanks Team. Their performance dashboard is also awesome 👌Richie Stott ★★★★★ It has been a seamless transition to Sprocket and they have delivered on the goods. Very happy with the service and results. Our account manager, Kieran is great to deal with.Dylan Carter ★★★★★ Sprocket Digital is the real deal! They have turned our company around in our initial month of working with them and I could not recommend them more.The team is super helpful always making the time to have meetings with us and answer our endless amounts of questions.We are looking forwarded to working with them for the long term!Louis Chan ★★★★★ Sprocket have been great to deal with from the start and have brought in great results. Highly recommended :)Brent Alexander ★★★★★ We have been working with Ronnie and the team at Sprocket for a few months now and have been stoked with the results. Super helpful, very responsive to questions and great to work with. Would highly recommend.Gavin Sheppard ★★★★★ Ronnie and the team at Sprocket have done an awesome job of understanding what our business needs, and helping to develop the digital marketing strategy for TankMate.Maggie from Astound Smile ★★★★★ We have worked with a couple of other agencies that did not deliver and I'm impressed with the level of service, support & results we get from Sprocket. Within a few weeks of working with Sprocket, we can see immediate improvement on our sales. Harry and the team has taken the time to understand our business and continue to work on delivering results. We look forward to continue working with Sprocket to grow our business. If you are looking for a result-focused agency, you can't go wrong with Sprocket!Josef Arnet ★★★★★ Sprocket Digital has been great to work with and has provided great inside and addition to the digital side of our business (Kitchen Things) their SEO team is fantastic and Harrison their Email marketing specialist is an absolute savant when it comes to knowing how set up email campaigns, templates as well as automatic email flows and the logic required to make them impactful and effective for a business. They always continue to impress with the work they do.NZ Health Food Company ★★★★★ We've been working with Sprocket Digital for a few months now and are seeing really good results. Dan and the team are great to work with and are constantly looking for opportunities to help us grow our ecommerce platform. Great communication and nothing is ever a hassle.Speednation ★★★★★ Outstanding, the team at Sprocket have been tremendous, and taken our store to the next level. Ronnie and the team are on to it and get things done quickly to a high standard. If you are looking for a marketing team, this is your one stop shop for all your marketing needs!Team at Speednation.co.nzLily Richards ★★★★★ I really enjoy working with Sprocket. I've worked with them on two different projects now; they're data driven, great communicators & listeners as well as extremely good value/above board. They helped us improve our Google quality and conversions by nearly double. I would definitely recommend them.Andrew Tuioti ★★★★★ Super pro-active group of professionals. Our sales have doubled in a matter of weeks and looking forward to working with Ronnie, Dan and the team for the for-seeable future.Mark Chapman ★★★★★ Great start with Sprocket. Particularly like the data driven methodology, transparency and friendliness.Matt Boylan ★★★★★ This is the second time I have used Sprocket Digital in my role as Marketing Manager for small to medium sized businesses. Given our marketing team is very small and we don't have a specific digital marketing resource internally, it gives me peace of mind knowing that all our digital needs are being outsourced to Sprocket. On both occasions of working with Sprocket, the team have very quickly got up to speed on our business. The setup is seamless and my regular meetings with the team help to identify opportunities for us to leverage. The entire team are really knowledgeable and down to earth even though they have some very experienced people working on our account. I would highly recommend Sprocket to any other business who wants expert advice and guidance on their digital marketing with an accessible and down to earth approach.cam scott ★★★★★ So far all of my requests from Sprocket Digital have been handled very professionally and timely. I am really enjoying the level of communication and how easily approachable the team is.Pathik Modi ★★★★★ Started working with Sprocket just before the lockdown this year and have to say I'm very impressed with the level of service, support & results we get from the company. Our account manager, Sophie has been very helpful in making us understand the process at the same time took the time to understand our needs and understood exactly what would help achieve our business goals.Highly recommend!Kate Mayo ★★★★★ I have been working with Sprocket for a few months and am very happy that we decided to work together. A friendly team, very responsive and thorough. Harry has really taken the time to understand our business and develop strategies to help us grow.NZ-Online-Pharmacy ★★★★★ The results speak for themselves. Our website has been lifted to the next level, in both hits & resulting translations into physical orders. Thanks Kieran & Team!Phillip Wards ★★★★★ Harry and the team at Sprocket have done an amazing job for our start up company. It's been an absolute pleasure having them onboard, pushing our sales and helping make our business what it is today, this has only taken one month. Looking forward to many years to come.Thanks teamSheree Palmer ★★★★★ Great Team to work with, communication is great and they are actively engaged with working with you.Alastair Pope ★★★★★ Harry and the Sprocket team have been amazing in connecting with and successfully converting a new audience for our business. During these challenging economic conditions, the additional revenue they've generated has proven to be invaluable. Their professional, transparent, and data-driven approach has rekindled my confidence in the agency model.Gabi Metz ★★★★★ Working with Sprocket has been so easy! Like a weight has been lifted off our shoulders. And the results so far have been fantastic!Lance Metz ★★★★★ Sprocket has been an incredible digital marketing partner, helping us grow our monthly turnover. They are extremely helpful and are quick to respond to any needs we may have. I would highly recommend for any company looking to take on a digital transformation journey.Hybrid Bikes Ltd ★★★★★ We have been working with Sprocket Digital for 3 month now and I am very happy with the team. They offer great service from analyzing our needs as a business to delivering a great action plan. I can highly recommend to any business which is looking for a fantastic marketing team. Kind regards FrankBeautiful You Holidays ★★★★★ Covid lockdowns meant complete operational shut down for our small NZ owned business. However, in the last few months we have finally got back up and running again with the help from Josh and his Sprocket team.Their understanding, resources and communication has been unwavering in this process and we have seen measurable results month on month. Trust plays a big role in digital marketing and I believe their formula is full proof.Sprocket has had a big role to play in getting our small business back on it's feet. I couldn't recommend this company enough!Cuddle Me Baby Ltd New Zealand ★★★★★ We love working with the Team at Sprocket Digital. They really take a personal interest in your business and come up with some fantastic marketing ideas, that have seen our sales grow in just the short time we have been working together. 100% trustworthy and love that they are NZ based and only a phone call away when you need them.Chris Sinclair ★★★★★ Great team to work with, we've experienced growth from day 1 and we're still going! Thank you team Sprocket DigitalLani Wards ★★★★★ We own Better to Give . We have only been working with Harry at Sprocket for a few months, but as a brand new E-Comm start up we knew we needed someone who could build our sales with fast and effective campaigns. We are very happy with our progress thus far and look forward to a long prosperous working relationship.Meelee Joe ★★★★★ Great working with the team at Sprocket Digital! We found the company friendly, accomodating, and they helped us to develop our knowledge of the business analyticsKiwi Duvets Ltd ★★★★★ We've found Ronnie, Dan and the team at Sprocket to be great so far. Onboarding process was nice and easy, and they have been available at any time to help us with any queries we've had. We're pleased with the results so far and the growth we've seen, and look forward to continuing to grow both the business and our relationship!Megan Blincoe ★★★★★ We are a new Client of Sprocket and I cannot fault them! Especially Ethan, he has been so available and clearly knows what he's talking about. He has been very patient with us and has thoroughly updated and explained every part of the set up and progress to date. Highly recommend using Sprocket DigitalAndrea Cummerfield ★★★★★ We've been using Sprocket Digital for around 5 months and are really happy with the results. The team is super easy to deal with, nothing's a problem, highly recommend using them!Ketaki Rasmussen ★★★★★ Sprocket has experts who can take your digital marketing to the next level, and you get personalised service with a dedicated account manager to help you achieve growth. Great to deal with.Nudi Point ★★★★★ FINALLY... a digital marketing company that actually gets the results. This is the 5th business I have dealt with in the last 7 years - and the only business that has proven results. Our sales have increased hugely and it's only been 1 month. Harry is amazing to work with and the whole team at Sprocket Digital know exactly what they're doing. The results speak for themselves. Highly recommend!js_loader

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