Lately, everyone seems to be weighed down by talk of difficult financial times. Some people may think the concern is overrated, but there is no denying that the global economy is undergoing a sever recession. Even businesses in Europe are feeling the heat, with ever-declining sales, and are trimming their marketing budgets. Marketers are being asked to do more with less and navigate these tricky economic times while staying focused on profitable expansion.

One strategy outlined here may help marketers survive and even thrive in the current situation. It is focused around the idea of analyzing, optimizing and diversifying. These three concepts can become the cornerstone if their success online.

Analyze:

It times of recession, it is tempting to cut down on marketing budgets. Marketers in such a situation naturally abandon activities with fewer or no results at all. It may sound logical, theoretically, however in most cases, in the absence of a well-defined analytical strategy; this is rarely the correct approach to assume.

For example, a local shoe store began advertising on Face book, using Face book’s pay-per click advertising model. Assuming that the retailer did not have good advertisement copy written and an equally weak landing page, the store found advertising on Facebook to be a low return on investment (ROI) activity. In order to save costs, they decided to shut down the campaign and hence missed out on acquiring potential customers. Here, a better strategy would have been to test various versions of the ad copy and the lading page, before deciding whether or not to continue spending on the campaign.

Analyzing online marketing activities is easy and differentiates online marketing form its conventional counterpart. It can be assessed and measured extensively. The thing to remember is that any advertising campaign ratio. This conversion ratio, also viewed as an ROI, significantly helps marketers decides which online marketing channel to choose and which to lose.

Conversion can be defined as any action the advertiser wants the visitor to take. It could be a sales transaction, signing up for a newsletter or a qualified sales lead. In the context of analyzing, marketers need to analyze data and find out which marketing activity, channel or strategy results in maximum conversions. This also means weeding out activities that are not bringing in positive results. The first and foremost strategy marketers should adopt in times of recession is investing in conversion measurements tools. Most of them are fairly adequate and, above all, free. Google analytics, for example, is a free conversion tracking tool, with which one can define conversion goals and track the success of a campaign. Another great tool, also free from Google, is Website Optimizer. This utility lets one perform various tests to measure versions of a webpage that converts more visitors.

Nowadays, many campaigns actively use the internet to promote their brands in cyberspace. Unfortunately some of them don’t even have landing pages followed by their advertisements or a call to action and hence, there is no way to track conversions and success for the money spent online.

It is always beneficial to set conversion goals and track the performance of advertisements and e-mail campaigns more strictly. Analyzing campaigns helps improve conversion rates which results in more customers without extra payment.

Optimize:

Common sense dictates that a website that demonstrate better conversion rates will have lower cost per conversion and, in turn, will increase ad spending efficiency.

A site being continually improved for conversion can with stand the storms of finicky economic times. Optimizing a site should be a scientific process that gives customer insight and is accountable, efficient, and measurable. The following are three steps integral for ad- campaign optimization.

Use analytical reports as customer insight:

Instead of just reports, analytical data provides deep insight into customer behavior. Using the data, analysts can identify what actions customers are taking on a website as a result of which strategies. Each click is an action taken by a real person and learning why customers do what they do can help optimize the advertising campaign.

Turn insight into action:

If users leave the website or landing pages, reasons should be theorized and then variations of the pages and ads should be tested to confirm or refute the insight obtained from step one.

Rinse and repeat:

This process of determining consumer insight and acting accordingly is the single most effective strategy in a marketer’s repertoire. This process should be part of the strategy and applied continually to achieve the highest possible conversion rates manageable.

Diversify:

No doubt, many brands have already diversified from the conventional advertising channels. Many are now online, with some advertisement running on popular services such as Facebook, MSN Messenger, and Yahoo! Mail etc. unfortunately for many that is the extent of their online marketing strategy. A 360 degree strategy online comprises other more profitable and effective channels, which if played well, can surpass and yield better results. Some highly effective activities are:

Apart from these tested online marketing channels, there is always good, old-school, targeted e-mail marketing. Companies, small or large, who have not already started working on this, are missing out on this huge piece of the internet marketing pie. Generating, managing and maintaining the value of mailing lists is tedious and time consuming- but it is well worth the effort.

Many companies, such as telecommunication and banks, are sitting on a gold mine of large lists of subscribers and customers. Other large fast –moving consumer’s goods companies with huge customer bases and a large budget for conventional media can really exploit this channel. Some examples include getting customers to register online or via SMS, using conventional campaigns or providing incentives for registration.

In times of recession, using these lists to begin a more personalized communication channel can greatly reduce marketing costs. Monthly newsletters, e-mail alerts, and promotions can be disseminated through e-marketing. Cost of sending out e-mail messages are insignificant compared to the costs of print, radio, television, etc.

Despite the global economic recession, the times are certainly interesting. It can separate visionaries from rookies. What is important to remember is that even in the darkest times, business goes on. People buy and sell and this trend never plunges below a certain threshold. In fact, there are some benefits of a recession.

Low media costs, for example; as fewer advertisers deals. Smart marketers will find no shortage of opportunities in the coming months and year and the ones who seize these opportunities, will come out strong and success on the other side of recession.