Embrace SEO as a Recession Life Raft
October 16th, 2008by Matt Parisi
Intense Need to Justify Marketing Budgets
During an economic down turn, one must spend marketing dollars wisely. With the weakening economy, companies typically scrutinize all marketing programs—however, savvy marketers and executives know that this is not the time to cut marketing budgets; it’s simply time to ensure that marketing investments are getting the highest return possible.
“B2B Marketing in 2008: Trends in Strategies and Spending” (MarketingProfs-Forrester Research) shows that marketers are increasingly being held accountable for marketing ROI in terms of business metrics. More than 70 percent of B2B marketers surveyed reported having systems in place that tie marketing success to business outcomes. Furthermore, the survey reported that 95% of marketers expect budgets to remain unchanged or increase.
So, What Are the Wisest Marketing Investments?
Most online marketing activities involve an ongoing demand of manual labor (e.g. blogging, social networking, etc.) and/or continuous dollars (e.g. pay per click, display advertising, affiliate marketing). If the flow of resources to these tactics is turned down, then their return quickly diminishes. SEO, on the other hand, pays strong dividends long after initial investments and set-up are made. With proper attention, the long-term returns of SEO can displace PPC expenditures and other “pay as you go” programs.
In a survey conducted in early October by Online Marketing Blog, over 400 business marketers were asked what 3 Internet marketing tactics they would emphasize most in the next 6 months. The #1 response, with over 36% of all votes was SEO—in these uncertain times, these marketers recognize the strong and lasting impact that SEO can provide. However, in a recession, it would be wise to reexamine one’s underlying keyword strategy to adapt to possible changes in search behavior.
Change in Customer Spending = Change in Keyword Strategy
During the high times of any economic growth, consumers spend with less discression and avail themselves of common comforts and luxuries as desired. However, when a recession hits, a transfer in spending naturally occurs– people turn their spending towards necessary items and bare essentials. Instead of spending money at a restaurant, recession-strapped consumers will cook at home, hence buying cookware and groceries. Instead of hiring service professionals, some consumers will elect to perform house projects and repairs themselves, diverting spending towards home materials.
This change in spending mentality will have a direct impact in the searching tendencies and popularity of related keywords, so marketers should evaluate how such transfer of spending behaviors will impact consumers and their searching behaviors in their specific industries. What are the new alternatives that your customers might be looking for to cover their necessities? What are their new primary drivers: price, quality, selection, reliability, etc.? And how do recession forces translate into the B to B world? The answers to these questions should drive any alterations in the keywords you optimize for. For instance, an office furniture retailer might have to turn to short term lease options with low payment plans to their clients who normally would just buy products outright.
In some cases, this might involve revamping the content and tags of existing pages, but be cautious not to do this at the expensive of successful optimization already in place. It may be wise to consider publishing new content heavily focused on recession-driven keywords, so as to complement your site’s existing content instead of displacing it.
Tags: Down Turn, recession, SEM, SEO
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