Managing your online marketing spend during the quiet periods

Depending on the industry, when it comes to the end of the year, a lot of business owners tend to reduce or even stop their marketing all together, as it becomes a lot more quiet. For cost per click marketing, such as Facebook ads or Google ads, yeah, fair enough, as you don’t want people clicking on your ads if they’re not going to convert. But when it comes to SEO, this will definitely be detrimental to your business. I know, I know, if the market is not really looking for your services, then why should you keep spending? Well, the thing is with Google, as that is based on trust, and trust does take time to build, just like any relationship, and once you stop putting effort into that relationship, well, things change. Your page one rankings on Google will begin to drop. And when you’re ready to come back on board, you can’t just say, “hey, Google, I’m back and ready to make this work again”. It doesn’t work like that. Just like in everyday life, you’ll need to earn that trust back, and that could take even longer than the period you have stopped or reduced your marketing budget for.

Another thing to note is that while you have stopped your marketing, most of your competitors have not. They will even overtake your ranking results, and any new potential clients will find them before you as you’re not at the top of the search results anymore. Example, we had an e-commerce client during COVID reduce their SEO budget by 60%, saying they’re not getting any walk-in sales into their store, of course, but even through their online sales, they increased by 120% there. We try to tell them they should be spending even more money during this time as everyone will be online, and they can’t afford their rankings to drop as this is the only place they’ll get sales. They didn’t listen. Long story short, after a while, they started to drop rankings and began to panic. And once they put their budget back up, the damage was already done, and they went into liquidation and shut down all their five stores as well as costing the jobs of many people during that tough time.

I’ll finish it off with saying this. Marketing is usually the first thing that gets cut when businesses think about cutting costs, which does not make any sense unless their marketing teams are not performing. But if you cut your marketing budget, how can you expect your business to grow? How will you acquire new customers? Growth is always important, and any smart business owner knows this. It is never safe to stay content and be too comfortable because if you do lose a few loyal customers, it may cause all sorts of havoc and stress in your business. I know last year was tough on a lot of people and business owners, as a few years was also before that. I do hope this year will be a lot more positive for all.

Looking forward to meeting many business owners and seeing where we can help you. Get in touch. Take care guys.