Marketing is an odd thing. The better the economy, the worse most of us get at it. Things are rosy. There’s optimism in the air, bills are paid on time, and we’re more likely to say yes to that persistent salesperson promising to grow our business. That Super Mario graphic in their presentation was pretty convincing! But much like a good holiday, the longer the good times roll, the more bloat we pick up, writes marketing expert Mike Halligan, co-founder of Scratch.

Right now, we’re all remembering the long-lost art of critical thinking. The economy has spooked just about everyone, and it’d be irresponsible not to review our marketing strategy to make sure our businesses can make it out the other side.

How to stretch your marketing budget further

When it’s time to save some pennies, these are the first places I look:

1. Display advertising

If you’re still doing it, let this be your nudge to move on. Between ad fraud, ad blockers and people tuning banner placements out, those CPMs might look nice, but no good business is built on display.

2. SEO

Paid search has completely swallowed organic traffic for most key categories. If you’ve got an SEO agency on the books, see how much organic traffic is being driven from people searching for your company, versus education or category searches. Most small businesses won’t be getting a ton of value from their SEO agency unless there’s not much advertising going on.

3. Payment processing fees

Not really a marketing line item, but if you sell online, odds are you’re paying more for your credit card processing than you have to. Ask your payment provider for the best rate they can offer you. Put those savings back into your marketing budget.

4. Consultants and agencies

Whether it’s coaching, advice or new capabilities, the right outside help can be amazing. If you have someone that you value or is key to your strategy, stick with them. For the rest, unless they’re going to pay for themselves in the next quarter or two, put it on pause. Agency fees really add up.

Review your internal productivity

After I’ve looked externally at what is helping my short-term success, I start to look internally. In my view, firing people should be the absolute last resort and one you hopefully avoid.

Instead, look at what your team is spending their time on. When the economy is good, we invest in time-consuming things that have a hopeful payback and forget the cost of wages and management effort: I’m looking at you, content! While content adds a lot of value, it can also be a complete and utter waste of time. Look at what is producing a strong return and re-focus your efforts on what can move the needle in the next quarter or two.

With your people working on high-value things, there’s less money being spent on things that you can easily live without, so you should find yourself with a bunch of spare time and a neater marketing budget.

This leaves us at the really hard part. Most of us have too many products. Some of them don’t sell very well, but they take time and resources, which might even stop us from developing new products that could actually grow the business. Don’t be precious. If you can live without it, it’s worth considering whether you need it at all.

You want to finish your review knowing that you’re being efficient, not cheap. Cut the fat and leave room to work on, and invest in, high-impact things. If you’re lucky, you might emerge from an economic fallout in a stronger position than you were going into it.

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