Marketing in a Recession: How to Optimize

Hello everyone! Dacia Coffey here, and welcome to Wednesday!

This is the written edition of my weekly series called, Corporate Caffeine.?Today's focus is on?Recession Planning.

FYI - I host this series live on?Facebook ?&?LinkedIn , post these episodes to?YouTube , and have a bonus?podcast covering a lot of this content and more.?

So, let's jump right in!?

Marketing in a Recession: How to Optimize

Before I dive in, something funny occurs to me. For any of you who've been thinking about doing video or live video — for any of you who've come close and then you just can't hit the go live button — guys, just do it.

Feel the fear, and do it anyways.

Being brave is not about not feeling nervous. It's about doing it anyway.

I speak for a living, I teach on speaking for a living, and I've been doing live videos for a long time — and sometimes, it's still hard for me to push the button! I just wanted to give you a little bit of encouragement about that today.

So, today's topic is optimization.

We're all in marketing and sales, right? You will always have to seek to exert influence to get your ideas understood and to be a good communicator. So, if you think this isn't about you, I totally disagree.

On top of that, you should want more out of your life. As such, we're going to take a bit of a business slant and get really specific.

Optimization

Unfortunately, we live in a culture where our to-do lists are so long that we have a tendency to get stuff done and never do the follow-up. This means we miss this huge question: How do we actually optimize something?

This could be around digital marketing, building your team, or helping them develop. This could be around a personal project that you have. How do you actually optimize??

I'm going to break down a few ways to think about this, and I hope to encourage you to go back and get more out of what you're already doing.

This is all about good stewardship. We have been entrusted with resources: people, mental capacity, financial points of view, relationships, and more.

You should be optimizing those and living in abundance.

Where Should We Optimize First?

Anytime you're talking, you've got to be thinking about your goals. You've got to be clear about what you want. Is it revenue? Customers? More "me time"?

Whatever it is, take the outcome and ask what's working in business, marketing, and sales. What will help you accomplish that?

Make a list listing what you are doing to achieve those outcomes. Next, put a plus or minus beside each item.

What's working, and what isn't??

Once you have all the pluses listed, you need to think about where those results are coming from. Why is something working?

It could be that you're talking to the right people, saying the right thing, investing enough money, whatever. There are many different reasons.

Also, one blind spot I want you to be careful about:

Are the outcomes you're getting predicated upon anything else? Is there a cascading effect somewhere in your life or in your activities where if you cut something else off, it wouldn't work anymore?

Make sure to understand that sometimes outcomes come because of an ecosystem, not because of a single silver bullet.

Ecosystem

How do you optimize the total system and not just be overly reliant on one component? I really challenge you to go back and look at those negatives.

Ask the same questions: Why is it not working? Do you have the wrong people? Wrong message? Wrong measurements?

Be so careful with stopping a process because it may be that you are throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

What Are the Variables?

?Remember, there are variables any time you are executing. When we're talking about marketing, you have to ask what the variables are.

Maybe if you're executing the right thing, there are variables that could be taking you down. These variables may just need to be optimized.

What could we be talking about?

First, targeting. Are you targeting the right people? Is your targeting too broad or too narrow? Did you choose the wrong market for your brand??

There are two points of comparison when you think about your brand and how alluring it is. First, is your branding strong enough to cut through the war on attention?

Is it strong enough to compete against Disney or Apple's ads? Is it impactful enough to get people's attention?

The other point of comparison is you versus your competitor.

Is your brand better than theirs? Is it more appealing, more resonant?

This leads us right into the message because winning the attention of war versus a is often about what you're saying and how much it is bringing value to the people you serve.?

Is your message right?

Sometimes, it comes down to how the message is delivered. Could it be more fun, serious, or emotional? Sometimes it's what you're saying. Is it mind-bending? Are you taking them on a journey?

On top of that, the message has got to align with who you're reaching out to. Really great messaging specializes in getting people to listen.

What's your offer?

Is it good enough to get someone to an appropriate call to action or get them to take the next step? Are you on the right platform?

For instance, if your market is on Facebook, but you like TikTok and are on that platform, you might see a disconnect. Your content might be amazing, but you're in the wrong place.

You have to be on the right platform. Keep in mind that the platform can be widely defined. It can be conferences, networking, associations, sponsorship, or social media platforms.

Systems

A platform is part of a system. In this case, you need to optimize a system. For example, are you doing something (like an ad), but then you don't have any way to nurture people's interest or capture people's contact information? If so, you don't have a way to follow up.?

In this case, you've not built a system where you take the next action to make it work. Instead, you're acting like action is a point in time instead of a journey.?

Let's talk about what you should be optimizing.

You should be optimizing your money and keeping more of what you work so hard for. You should be getting more for what you are paying, and you should be intentional about your money.

Lots of you are not going to love this conversation.

Your Budget Alignment

?Let's take a look at your budget and what you spend. Is it aligned with what you are spending on??

If you want more, are you spending on the things that get you more now? This isn't always comfortable, but this is about alignment and truth-telling.

This is about being brave enough to look in your own mirror and go, "How bad do I really want this? Is it bad enough to be intentional around my budget??

This is personal and business. For those of us in business who don't love numbers, it's really awful. It's very uncomfortable to sit down and look at numbers. Do it anyways. If you're not good at it, find somebody.?

Find that opportunity.

But what you want to be sure of is that your budget is aligned with your goals and with where your impact is going to come from.?

I'm going to give you one more marketing example for all my marketers and business friends out there. Is your budget aligned with what you want? People have a marketing budget, and they have a tendency to be like, "Here's my budget, right here, the whole thing."

That is not how a budget works

You should be asking where the impact is coming from. Do you need more visibility? Lead generation? Do you need to be nurturing people?

Your budget should be segmented into the impact that you're looking for. From there, you can allocate the appropriate percentage.

For example, if you're sending one percent on visibility, but you need a lot of visibility, you don't have alignment.

If you are crushing it in sales and all of your budget is going to sales, but you can't keep a full pipeline, you need to reallocate your budget and start investing in other places to seeds of future opportunity.

Getting More Out of People

First, let's be clear. This is not about figuring out what's in it for you.

What I mean is being clear on someone's highest and best use. This is about being a partner and helping them find their own highest and best use.

Now, let me be crystal clear: You're never going to love all 24 hours of every day. But research shows that if you love even 10% of a day, you are going to exponentially grow your joy and grow your value.

First, I encourage you to get more out of yourself.

This means you have to have self-awareness. You have to know what your highest and best use is. You have to be paying attention to the things that you love and that you need to be doing.

This isn't just for you, but also for friendship with other people. These people might be on your team.

They might be in your family. They might be your accountability partner. It doesn't matter. You need to know how you help others get more out of themselves and out of each other. This is all about investing in people.

There's no set it and forget it here.

Relationships take time and effort. You get the most out of them by being actively engaged.?

So, how do you get more out of yourself and out of all the other amazing humans you interact with??

A couple of different things. First of all, is your time aligned with the impact you want to have? Are you aligning your calendar and your decisions with what you want? If not, why? You may have certain responsibilities that just cannot be moved or deleted.?

Then, ask yourself this:

Are there new or alternative ways to do things?

How can you make better decisions with your time to still get what you want? The other thing to be aware of: When you're looking at your to-do list, notice the emotional reward you get from your to-do list.

We all just love checking stuff off, but that can be sneaky because if we love checking things off, we're going to focus on small things because we could draw more lines through them.

This can be sneaky because those small things might not actually be a big impact.?

This begs the question:

Are you being validated around certain tasks on your to-do list? What if those tasks are actually eating you alive because you shouldn't have said "yes" to them in the first place or because that's not your highest and best use??

What if you said "yes" because it's the easiest path, the path of least resistance?

Another one:

Those mini outcomes you pursue.

We lie, and we call it self-care. You know what I'm talking about: Those little indulgent treats like being on Facebook too long, watching TV, or playing Candy Crush. I'm not saying these are bad, but set a timer.

Be really, really thoughtful about optimizing your time.?

Optimizing Your Time

Want to get something done? Write it down. If it's not written down, you won't do it, and you can't be intentional with your time.

Take a course on time management, or at least invest in the skill set. There are some insanely brilliant smart books, YouTubers, people, and courses.

This is a massive investment. You will not only help get more out of your time, but it will help you grow in self-awareness.??

Be intentional with your calendar.

When possible, delegate. Some things we can't delegate, of course, but there are plenty of times that we can.

When you delegate to someone, and it stretches them, that's healthy. That's you optimizing people, helping them to ascend the highest and best use of their personal talents.?

Instead of just being fearful that you're the one who has to do it or feeling bad that you're asking someone for help, what if your delegation is actually helpful to the person you're asking for help? What if it makes them stronger??

When it comes to marketing, a leadership journey, or a whole bunch of other things, you can get away with not having a huge budget and still get results. Typically, the offset is that you have to have time and attention, right?

This means you might have to fill that gap by paying someone to do it right. That is your budget, optimizing your calendar, and optimizing your time.?

If money is a resource that you do have, and time is one that you do not have, you have to make sure you have the right balance of those.

This can be proudly impactful leverage.?

If you don't take care of yourself, if you don't invest in yourself, you will be inefficient with your time. You'll have a hard time thinking, you'll get fog brain, and you'll have all sorts of other difficult repercussions.

This means you have to be very thoughtful about time when it comes to self-care. Like, I know I'm horribly bad at this one, but that's why I'm sharing ... so that we can all grow.

Keep in mind that there are processes.

If you are reinventing the wheel over and over, if you struggle to make the same decision and procrastinate, or if there are any other hamster wheel types of scenarios in your life, get off the hamster wheel!

Find a process. Find a new system.

Make sure you focus on optimizing your time through processes.?

I'm going to continue to talk about more of this series. Next time, we'll talk about how to get more attention from people and how to maximize your client base, revenue streams, and relationships.?

Onward and upward!