Ed. 1 - Crucible Moment

Edition 1: January 10 ‘23

Recession; A Crucible Moment?

Whatever 2023 has to bring, the future always belongs to brave, long-term thinkers. Knowing how to strategically navigate periods of increased challenge and uncertainty is a necessity.

Brands that grow through recession do so by innovative value creation at the intersection of improved profitability and deeper relationships with valuable customer segments.?

Now is the time to double down on creativity, leveraging richer experiences to pivot appropriately and draw distance from your competition.?

Our recommendations:?

1. Invest in retention?- Have a churn problem? Now is the time to fix it. With demand contraction, it’s critical to maximize net revenue retention. It’s almost always cheaper to retain customers than it is to acquire new ones. Now is the time to really understand and double down on what drives loyalty and advocacy.?

2. Expand customer value?-?Extract more incremental customer revenue. Again, it’s cheaper than acquiring new customers. Invest in cross-sells and up-sell systems to connect more deeply to customers and maximize LTV.?

3. Invest in data and analytics?- As capital becomes more expensive, it’s wise to harness technology that allows you to make better investment decisions. We’re talking omnichannel attribution, end-to-end analytics, experimentation platforms. When done right, the total ROI on your media and tech stack investments will be higher than just media alone.

4. Improve your working-dollar efficiency?- If you’re being pressured to scale back, trim the fat first. You may be spending in areas that matter less right now, like over-indexing branded campaigns. Or to the contrary, over-indexing top-of-funnel without the right nurture journeys to harvest a meaningful return. Align your working dollars to the new playbook.

5. Only cut advertising as a last resort?- During recession, advertising demand drops, resulting in cheaper ad supply. Brands that don’t divest get more bang for their buck, gaining share of voice and often more market share. Conversely, ground lost on brand recognition will cost more to rebuild later.

There’s more in our latest insight article on?how to grow during a recession. But over the next few weeks, we’ll share more on how to sidestep recession rhetoric and smash growth expectations.?

Cheers to success and happiness in 2023.

Best,

Kenneth Shen

CEO, Half Past Nine

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