Recession-Proof
Marketing

Agile Project Management

Traditional marketing teams often get caught up in the “production trap” of spending days or weeks producing content, design work, and campaigns that ultimately perform poorly. Time and resources are wasted and little can be done to salvage them.

Recession-proof marketing is built on an agile methodology that instead prioritizes shorter production cycles and data-driven decision-making. 

1. Focus on outcomes over outputs

Traditional marketing tends to overemphasize generating a lot of assets and planning activities. Agile teams instead launch quickly, follow the data to find what works, and consistently improve upon projects. Outcomes are more important that deliverables.

2. Testing and iteration

Agile marketing is carried out in short sprints — usually a week or two long — that include limited releases and heavy testing and analysis. Each sprint is an opportunity to test and refine your messaging depending on its performance. It’s a fast and flexible approach to marketing.

3. Data-driven decision-making

Agile marketing is data-driven in every way. Data isn’t just used to determine if a completed sprint was successful — agile teams use it to inform all of their decisions and decide where to focus their energy.

4. Collaboration

Agile marketing teams collaborate extensively instead of working in individual siloes. Team members may also do work outside of what their title technically includes instead of strictly doing one type of work.  

Data-Driven Decision Making

Successful marketing requires data-driven insights built around the metrics that matter. “Vanity” metrics such as social media likes, views, and website visits can be exciting to see climb, but they don’t provide insight into whether your campaigns are driving the outcomes you want — qualified lead generation and closed deals.

There are seven crucial metrics to track that allow marketers and salespeople to spot and course-correct underperforming campaigns.

Seven Metrics for Recession-Proof Marketing

1. Lead Conversions

2. Qualified Leads

3. Cost per Lead (CPL)

4. Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC)

5. Overall Marketing ROI

6. Churn Rate

7. Customer Lifetime Value/Customer Acquisition Cost Ratio

Marketing Automation

While pretty much every marketing team could benefit from marketing automation, it’s even more critical for teams who are understaffed or otherwise attempting to do more with less. With a robust automation platform, you can automate the most repetitive, time-consuming tasks and ensure they’re done quickly and correctly every time.

Marketing automation software also allows you to handle a higher volume of tasks than you could on your own.

With marketing automation, you can free up your team members to work on higher-value strategy work and increase the number of leads your team can successfully nurture at once.

Three processes every team should automate:

1. Lead handoffs

Using triggers based on specific criteria, you can automate the handoff of qualified leads between marketing and sales. Automating this process ensures the right leads are handed off to sales at the right time — and that marketing and sales agree on when that should happen.

2. Long-term lead nurturing

Sales and marketing should work together to determine how to cultivate a lead over time, how often to contact that potential customer, and when leads should be connected to a salesperson.

3. Defining MQL and SQL criteria

Marketing and sales should work together to create MQL and SQL definitions that the team can automate and set up alerts that tell them when a lead has crossed those thresholds.

A Robust, Fully-Embraced Tech Stack

Consider your team's tech stack when you’re looking for places to make easy budget cuts. It can be challenging to determine which tools are worth it and which ones won't add value to your bottom line, especially as marketing teams adopt new digital marketing strategies and find holes in their processes. 

A lean tech stack doesn’t have to be a challenge. It can empower your team to create differentiating experiences for your customers while remaining agile and not wasting your budget on unnecessary tools. A lean tech stack doesn't have to limit your team or marketing strategy as long as you thoroughly understand your tools and prioritize continued training. 

When evaluating your tech stack, ask yourself: 

Where does each tool fit into my customer journey?

While your buyer's journey is (hopefully) at the heart of everything you do, some marketers don't consider it when building their tech stack. Mapping your tech stack to your buyer's journey will help you determine the actual value of any given tool and keep your tech stack lean.

Am I fully utilizing all the tools in my current stack?

Depending on when and how marketing tools were implemented, they may have new features you're not utilizing, functionalities that team members don't fully understand, or use cases that haven't been considered.