Thanks to the pandemic, inflation is now becoming a concern for all businesses. For those working in marketing, that’s going to look like an uphill battle for you. While inflation will come with some challenges, you will be able to adapt your strategy to account for it. Here’s what you need to do when adapting your marketing strategy for inflation.
Understanding Inflation
Firstly, you’ll need to have a good understanding of what inflation is and how it will affect your business. ‘Inflation’ is a broad term used to describe the increased cost of living and an overall rise in prices. As a marketer, this poses a challenge as consumers will be focusing more on spending less on non-essentials.
However, there are ways to adapt your marketing strategy during times of inflation, so you can show consumers why you’re still worth buying from. You’ll need to change your tactics during this time to keep ahead, so here’s how you do it.
Keep Those Customer Personas in Mind
When creating any new marketing strategies, you’ll have to remember the customer personas that you have made. These represent your customer base, and they’re what you should always be referring back to. If you’re creating new marketing materials, are they addressing these customers’ pain points, or offering solutions that they’re looking for right now?
“Think about what your product or service can do to help address these issues,” says Simon Jeavons, a tech blogger from Academic Brits and PhD Kingdom. “What can it do to help them during a period of inflation?” That’s something that’s important to ask, as you’ll need to meet the customer where they are now.
Maintain a Consistent Tone Over Social Media
You may be changing your marketing strategy to fit in with the times, but that doesn’t mean you need to change your tone on social media. You’ll want to maintain as consistent as possible. Remember that you’ll already have customers following you across your platforms, and suddenly changing the way you write is going to be jarring.
Stick with an authentic voice that will come across well to your customer base. Even if you’re making changes elsewhere, you shouldn’t need to change your tone online.
Be Aware of Economic and General News
World and local events are going to affect your marketing as a whole, so you need to be sure that you’re paying attention to them. That way, you can adapt any new posts you make to what’s happening around you, and your marketing will be relevant to your audience.
Being aware of what’s happening in economic news will help you understand what pressures your customer base may be facing right now. That in turn will help shape your marketing efforts so you can give your customers what they need.
Typically, you should be tracking your progress through your business metrics. That shouldn’t change through times of inflation. All good businesses should be looking at how their marketing is working, and where they need to make improvements.
“You especially should be tracking metrics in these times,” says journalist Yvonne Marston, from Next Coursework and Origin Writings. “While you may be making slower progress, you are still making progress and you’ll need to see what’s working.”
Be Flexible
Finally, as the market is currently shifting to accommodate inflation, you’ll need to be able to shift with it. Don’t be afraid to try out new strategies and see what works. After all, your customer base is experiencing change right now. And you’ll want to be able to move with them to give them what they’re looking for.
Be open-minded about what new strategies you could use, and try experimenting. Sticking with your tried and tested formula during this time won’t bring you the success you want, so be ready to change things up when need be.
As inflation changes marketing, you’ll need to be ready to change your marketing strategies with it. If you’re ready to be flexible and make changes where needed, you’ll be able to keep growing and succeeding during this time. Try these strategies and see how you can still succeed as a business during this time.
