In a tightening economy, stakeholders look to squeeze more from their budgets. Some may even reduce their budgets. Can you focus your marketing funnel on acquisition, conversions and ROI in order to maximize the return for less money? I will look at a few social media manager issues and possible outcomes.
Agorapulse hosted a webinar titled How Savvy Marketing Turns Economic Downturns Into Growth Gold. Darryl Praill from GTM Partners, Sangram Vasjre and Judd Borakove, CMO of Agorapulse, discussed:
Benefits of adapting your strategies to real-time dataWhat does leadership want to know…and when?How can you attribute the impact of your social media campaigns to your top-line revenues?
Click here to watch the FREE webinar!
What is the impact of a recession on social media managers?
74% of advertisers say the economic downturn has influenced their budget decisions for 2023. Most marketers said that their budgets, and the costs of social media marketing are being closely scrutinized.
Social media marketers may notice changes in their campaigns due to budget cuts and shifting priorities.
Look at the challenges facing social media managers and possible solutions to help turn economic downturns in gold.
1. More than social media – a multi-faceted approach
Social media managers may be forced to take on other tasks, such as content creation and advertising, due to budget cuts and reduced staff. This might not be an issue for those who work in small businesses. Most likely, they have acquired or used a broad marketing skill set.
This may not be an issue for small businesses, but it could be a major change for large organizations that have historically had large marketing departments.
Your gifts can be turned into gold
Contentworks Agency was founded without any marketing budget or staff. We used Canva to create our images, GIFs using Giphy and the basic version Agorapulse, which is licensed for each user.
This taught us a lot.
We can now see the value of every piece of software that we added to our arsenal of social media tools. The ability to acquire skills outside of social media.
In no way am I saying that we do not need designers or videographers to be part of our lives. Canva can be a better alternative to an in-house graphic designer. If budget cuts are in the works, social media managers should consider upgrading their skills or showcasing them.
You can increase your employability by expanding your knowledge of social media tools. Showcase your knowledge by updating your LinkedIn profile or resume.
As Agorapulse CMO, Darryl, states:
Growth doesn’t have to be about awards, promotions, or pay increases. It’s all about exercising muscles that you’ve never used before. I want you to become a data science.
2. Spend less on social media
It is likely that the budget will decrease, but results will remain unchanged.
The social media manager is left to try and bridge the gap between results and budget. This could mean re-evaluating your budget, analyzing the most profitable channels, and removing funds from vanity campaigns that aren’t performing.
Turn it into Gold
Check this list with your key stakeholders if you are reducing the budget for social media.
A significant budget cut warrants a new look at your social media strategy and KPIs.
Review your marketing budget. Compare the budget with your previous one. Use free tools when you can. Review all licenses and decide what you really need. Focus on user-generated material. UGC is free, and it performs well on social media. 76% of users trust “normal” people’s content over brand content. Review your best performing content. Agorapulse reports can be run on your social media to determine which channels and content are performing the best. If a particular channel is not performing well, you should remove budget from it. It’s the same for content that isn’t performing.
Here is an example of our Facebook performance.
Comparing Twitter to Facebook for the same time period, it is clear that Twitter does not perform in the same manner for content engagement. This also shows that Twitter’s content is unlikely to lead to any new leads.
Double-up on performing content. Focus on producing more content that is similar to those campaigns and content types that have shown dollar ROI. If campaigns fail (we’ve had them all), then do not repeat the same mistakes. Marketers should strive for a return-on-investment (ROI), or at least a 3:1 ROI, for social media advertising. For every dollar of advertising spent, the brand should make three dollars.
3. Priorities refocused
The focus of stakeholders might be on the health of their funnel, bookings and demos, conversion rates and sales, customer experience/churn and growth through new products and revenue streams.
Social media managers are challenged to align their KPIs with these values. Or, indeed, to align with metrics that they can track.
Since years, social media managers have focused on their own metrics, while CMOs, stakeholders, and others, focus on another set. This could be a mistake that we have all made.
Turn it into Gold
Learn to master financial acronyms. Do not be intimidated by unfamiliar terminology. You don’t have to know everything.
Spend time with stakeholders and discuss acronyms such as NRR and ARR to better understand their meaning and impact on the business.
It is always a positive thing to improve your financial understanding. You’ll also gain valuable connections with people who can help you advance in your current position or next.
Agorapulse has an ROI calculator built into its dashboard. However, you must enter the parameters correctly.
Ask your stakeholders to help you learn financial terms, establish social media metrics and produce accurate social media ROI reports.
Build strong relationships. Consider networking a way to grow your career/development throughout your career. Do not only use it in emergency situations.
4. Panic marketing
The challenges of a social media manager also include adapting to the new marketing strategies that are laid out by stakeholders. They may appear rushed or out of sync with normal planning and preparation.
If your organization suffers from shiny object syndrome, you might find yourself in panic mode. A stakeholder may have heard or seen an innovative marketing technique/campaign at a conference, or a competitor using it. Stakeholders want to implement the new marketing campaign/technique immediately, even if they don’t think it fits with your overall strategy. Absence of high-level goals or strategies for departments (Sales and Marketing, etc.). The foundation of panic marketing can be a lack of high-level strategy or goals for departments (Sales, Marketing, etc.). This is made worse when a team of marketers is not empowered to speak up or provide data when needed.
A lack of trust in the CMO can also be a reason for panic-marketing. A survey was conducted with 150 Fortune 3000 CEOs across 13 industries. Only 34% of Fortune 3000 CEOs said that they had great confidence in their Chief Marketing Officers. Only 34% of respondents said that CMOs are not equipped to handle the new marketing environment.
Turn it into Gold
It can be hard to remain open to new ideas, but ultimately the focus should be on delivering a social media ROI. Does this new shiny thing fit your brand? Will it bring ROI? Here are the main areas that need to be addressed.
It is crucial to adopt the mindset of a stakeholder who is driven by ROI in order to avoid conflict, standoffs and, eventually, staff layoffs. I think that removing emotions and focusing on data is the key. The data is the central source of truth.
TIP: Agorapulse allows you to run split tests on new ideas before dismissing them. Data is not a lie and can be used to show if a certain strategy works. Track your URLs, and connect your Agorapulse to Google Analytics so you can track the whole funnel. Agorapulse can also measure your performance compared to other competitors.
You can get more insight by watching the webinar, How Savvy Marketing Turns Economic Downturns Into Growth Gold. I learned from Darryl Sangram and Judd that data is a unifying factor for social media managers and stakeholders.
Understanding financial funnels, and finding your ROI sweet spot on social media can help you improve the financial result of a brand.
It’s never too late for you to learn something new. You might not be a social media data expert if you think that you are “not good at numbers”.
Learn how Agorapulse helps you to determine the ROI for your social media campaigns. Sign up for a free demo today!
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