Sustaining Business Performance and Maintaining Momentum-Based Growth During a Recession

It is better to be prepared for a recession with concrete plans for sustaining business performance than it is to worry about a recession. After all, every economy in every country will go through periods of decline. People will spend less money, jobs will be scarce, and the price of living will go up. What typically happens next has nothing to do with economics but with human psychology.

Fear and worry set in as stock markets plummet, and the market value of assets like real estate take a dive, making the recession worse. While all seems bleak, the good thing is that recessions have a time limit. The economy will recover, and typical consumer buying patterns will resume.

The only question is which businesses will fail because they lost significant sales growth and which will survive because they had plans for sustaining business performance during a recession. So, what strategies can a company use in an economic downturn?

Our team at Future Holidays can help business owners maintain business performance during a recession by offering customers an immersive digital experience with a website that optimizes the user experience.

We can also help businesses implement marketing automation technologies such as those offered by Klaviyo to acquire, retain, and grow their customer base.

Strategies for Sustaining Business Performance During Economic Downturns

Business disruptions can happen even in a good economy. Cyberattacks, natural and man-made disasters, or major changes in the local business setting or consumer demand can all set a business on course for failure. And sustaining business performance during major economic upheavals can be challenging, as recent history shows.

During the 80s, the migration of steelmaking, automotive manufacturing, and coal production from the Rust Belt caused many Mideastern factories, mills, and mines to shutter. They left virtual ghost towns in their wake. A similar scenario was seen during the Great Recession of 2008. The financial crisis forced many small companies to go out of business: “Between December 2008 and December 2010, about 1.8 million small businesses went under.”

Our organization can help companies build resilient eCommerce business platforms that can absorb the shock of economic downturns and recover faster. We have partnered with companies that have seen double-digit revenue increases due to a 20% increase in organic traffic after launching a new, optimized website and implementing a tailored, automated email strategy.

Invest in Marketing and Sales

Take advantage of the reduction in competition during a recession by increasing your sales and marketing campaigns. This is the time to increase your brand awareness to avoid the old saying, “out of sight, out of mind.”

Email Strategies

If you have an eCommerce business, consider partnering with us to implement Klaviyo tools like automated email campaigns that can help:

• Build stronger relationships with your customers.
• Increase the percentage of your website visitors who complete a successful buyer’s journey.

Market Research

At the same time, don’t be afraid to take notice of any changes in your targeted buyer personas. After all, these personas may change during a recession. If your products or services were once branded as luxury, then work with your marketing teams to rebrand your product lines as necessities—even if the necessity is simply to find a bit of joy during difficult times!

Web Design

Your website forms the foundation of your customer-facing brand. At Future Holidays, we’re dedicated to providing customers with a website design that is both visually exciting and memorable. But a snazzy-looking website is not enough. A poorly optimized website can have a negative effect on your marketing and sales efforts when the website copy is boring, the website is slow to load or difficult to navigate, or it features excessive advertising pop-ups with little or no information to help customers make an informed decision.

Rebranding

Consider narrowing your brand focus. A small group of stable earners in the top 5% of the purchasing population will continue their usual spending patterns, even during a recession. Another sales and marketing strategy is to rebrand your business. Market to a younger or higher-income demographic that’s very loyal to favored brands.

Scaling Business to Reach New Markets

With today’s ever-increasing data and analytical tools, you can find new leads, territories, product lines, or markets. It just takes a little research. After you’ve invested in upping your email marketing game, consider expanding your business. Take advantage of opportunities that a recession has had little effect on or product lines where you can outperform the current competition.

Before you start scaling business operations, make sure you understand the clear value of doing so. A great way to scale a brick-and-mortar operation is to go online. eCommerce business owners benefit from:

• Lower overhead
• Streamlined processes
• Access to a wealth of customer data that can be used for future outbound advertising campaigns

Our team specializes in helping businesses of all shapes and sizes leverage online shopping. Start by increasing revenue through smart website designs that offer a more personalized and immersive digital experience. Our eCommerce services include using ChatGPT and AI marketing insights to help you discover lead and conversion opportunities in new markets. Both of these powerful marketing automation tools can be used to:

• Create social media content
• Scale marketing efforts
• Write engaging product descriptions
• Create optimized landing pages for promotional campaigns

Optimize Your Operations

Sustaining business performance and growth during a recession cannot happen if your business operations are not optimized. It is critical to rework any processes that create wasted energy, money, or resources. Operational optimization should be considered for the three main parts of any business—the core business, support, and admin functions. It’s also important for future long-tail operations like investments in equipment or inventory.

Business process optimization should result in improvements to both processes and profit. This is because lower operational costs free up capital for functions that directly affect your bottom line.

At Future Holidays, we help businesses implement new ways to get more orders and simplify the online checkout process. We aim to help you get customers to add items to their shopping carts and complete the buyer’s journey with an efficient checkout process.

Contact Future Holidays for more information and creative direction on how to implement automated Klaviyo marketing strategies and other eCommerce technologies that work to optimize operations, scale your business, and help you grow into new markets. Keeping the momentum going after your eCommerce website has been launched is critical. So maintain that momentum with a results-driven approach that strengthens customer relationships, which can result in revenue growth.