Hey there, welcome back to Marketing the 912. This is a podcast about marketing in South Georgia. I'm Jan Southern, and today we're going to talk about how to deal with economic uncertainty. As we know, recently, there's been a lot of economic uncertainty. We've got wars in multiple countries, we have tariffs, we have just market fluctuations, and it's just, it can be an uncertain time. And so I want to talk about that and how we can navigate that as business owners. So I'm going to take you back a little bit in my career. I've been in this, I've been in my career almost 35 years. And so I've seen a lot of ups and downs in the economy. I spent 16 years in higher education where I led marketing and communications departments for three different universities. I also had a small magazine in South Florida in 2010. 2005 to 2008. And if you know anything about the economy at that time and the housing market in South Florida or in Florida in general in 2008, that was a really tough time. And so I've learned to be flexible and be innovative as well. And that has really helped me in my career. So I'm really excited to share that kind of information with you today. In 2019, I started J. Del Sur Marketing Group and I purchased Effingham Magazine and Puller Magazine in July of 2019. And if you know anything about that time, right around the corner was COVID. And so with the magazines, we had to think outside the box. We had to be innovative in thinking about how we can continue to get in front of our readers, but also help our advertisers. Because many of those businesses were, their lobbies were closed. They couldn't bring patients into their medical practices. Restaurants were challenged. You know, we're having a lot of challenges. And so we wanted to think about a way that we could help our advertisers and also get our magazine in front of our readers. So what we did, one of the things that we did, we did some live interviews Facebook Live sessions with some of our advertisers, but we also purchased gift cards from many different businesses, including a lot of restaurants that were advertisers. And we gave those gift cards away to people on social media. We ran some contests. And then we asked those advertisers who had curbside pickup to put our magazine in their bags. for their curbside deliveries, their deliveries and their curbside customers. And that was a way for us to serve our advertisers, but also keep our magazine in front of our readers, right? So what that time taught me was that businesses that thrive during uncertain times aren't the ones that are gonna hunker down and hope for the best. They're the ones that are gonna stay nimble, innovative, but also visible. So being visible is what's really important. If you think about like a national company like Geico or Disney or AT&T, for instance, they're already household names. So why do you think that they keep spending millions of dollars on marketing? It's because they know that being consistent with your marketing is what's absolutely critical. They know that the moment that they stop being present in the customer's mind, they are giving up that attention from that customer. So It's kind of tough for us to think about that as small business owners because we're always trying to save money. But if you take away your marketing, you're losing the attention of your customers and your potential customers. In 2025, some current data tells us that in 2025, nearly half, 49% of small businesses actually increased their marketing budgets. 35% kept their budgets about the same and 16% cut their marketing budget. So think about that. While the media is telling us about all the economic uncertainty, smart business owners are doing the opposite of what fear would tell them to do. They're maintaining their marketing budgets. So with these economic shifts over the last few years and really deep into this year, 2025, many businesses have been tempted to cut their budgets. And I hear this a lot from our advertisers and our marketing clients that, and some of the, it's actually newer, businesses that are newer to advertising and new to marketing and maybe new to business in general, they kind of think of marketing as a luxury. I've heard this before where they say, well, when I get more revenue or when cashflow is better, I'll start advertising. But marketing really needs to be considered a critical business function. just like accounting, hiring the right people, all of those things, taxes, paying taxes. Marketing needs to be built into your business on a day-to-day cycle because it's that important. We And when we're scared, when we have fear, when cash flow is a struggle, we tend to fall into old patterns and our immediate reaction is to cut the budget, right? We take money away from outreach. We scale back on our community involvement. We stop advertising. And that is really the wrong way to think about it. What I try to encourage my clients to do is Yes, you should always be intentional about the money that you spend and the time that you spend on these critical business functions. You don't have to cut back. You just have to be more strategic in how you spend your money. And I talk about strategy a lot because I see a lot of businesses decide that they are just going to throw money at certain things or they try different marketing tactics, but they don't really have a marketing strategy. So I am always talking about strategy. the benefits of really stepping back and having a marketing strategy. So that's something to really think about to do during this time is to maintain your presence in the market. You can absolutely be strategic about it, be deliberate and frugal in how you go about it, but we definitely have to keep our name out in front of our customers and our potential customers. I always love this quote from Warren Buffett because it, I always have to keep this in my mind. He says, be fearful when others are greedy and greedy when others are fearful. So what does that mean in marketing terms? It means when others cut back, that's your opportunity to stand out. It's a phrase I heard recently called the power of loud. When your competitors pull back, your message becomes louder in the marketplace. Your brand stands out and your advertising becomes that much more effective. So let them be part of that percentage of small businesses that pull back and cut back their marketing. Now's your time to shine. That's my point of view. So if you're considering cutting back during economic times or when business is a little bit slow or even when business is good, I have heard people say that they're going to cut back on their marketing because business is good and they don't need new customers. So that is... kind of a backwards way of thinking because you never know when a competitor is going to come into your market or you don't want to wait and do your market you know think about marketing when business dips or when sales dip a little bit you want to you don't want to do that because it's going to take a while to build that momentum back up you want to make sure that you're you're out there in the market all the time you want marketing to be a continuous thing and It will keep you in front of your customers and it will make your message more effective because you'll be fine tuning it along the way. And you're going to be loud in the marketplace while your competitors may be cutting back. So I've come up with a list of reasons why continuously marketing is critical to your business. There's a download of this document, which is available for you if listening to this podcast. And I'm just gonna go over a couple of those here because I don't wanna take up all of your time today. But one of the most important things to do is continuously market because your competitors have an opportunity to steal your customers. So I'm not being dramatic, but this happens every day. The moment you go quiet, you're essentially handing them an invitation to take over your market position. Market share is like a muscle. You use it or you lose it. And once you lose it, it's exponentially harder and more expensive to get it back than it was to even maintain it in the first place. The other reason to continuously market is customers' memories are frighteningly short. Studies show that consumers forget brands within two months of no contact. Think about that, two months. Your customers aren't being disloyal, they're being human. We as consumers are bombarded with over 3,000 marketing messages every day. So if you're out of sight, you're out of mind. That's a reality. So when your customers need you again, they're going to probably go with the company that they recently saw. Or when you think about word of mouth, word of mouth is really top of mind. Yes, some of your friends will refer your business or a really great loyal customer will refer people to you, of course. But being top of mind to perspective, clients or older old clients, previous clients, it takes continuous marketing. So we talk a lot about email engagement. So I have a client who has a business that, you know, provides a service and then a year later they can provide that same service. So a customer needs that in annual intervals, right? So the client, my advertiser, they serve the client, they send a follow-up email asking for a review, and then they don't talk to that client again until the following year. Sometimes they reach out to clients at the annual mark, sometimes they don't. So you're expecting your client to, your customer to remember you a year later and make sure they have your number, make sure they can get a hold of you and contact you. When they're probably seeing messages from other companies that are similar to yours. So why would they, how are they possibly going to remember you? So it's really important to stay in front of them. And there's a lot of different tactics to do that. One of them is email marketing. And there's some really great marketing automation tools that we can use to make that happen. But this is the consistency and staying top of mind to customers and prospective customers is really critical. The other thing that always tickles me, and I mentioned it before, is, oh, Jan, we have enough customers. We don't need to market right now. This thinking is going to kill your business because customer churn is inevitable. People move. Their needs change. They find alternatives. Their life circumstances change. You are going to lose some customers, and so you need to continuously be feeding that funnel with new prospective customers. And What feels like enough today becomes not enough customers pretty quickly. You can one day be super busy, and then a week later, your business is slow. We have another advertiser who was worried about doing an ad campaign because he was busy. He has a kind of a home remodeling company, and he was booked out about a month later. And he was like, oh, if I advertise, I'm going to get too many people calling me and I'm not going to be able to serve them. Well, what if you, in a business like that, where most of the suppliers are competing on price, wouldn't it be better to have a waiting list? And be more selective about the kind of clients you choose, possibly. That might be a benefit of, you know, having a waiting list. But also, you know, people are going to think that you are a quality company and, you know, they might be willing to wait a couple of months to get your services. That's a good thing. But what's really bad is him... not advertising, not doing anything to gain new customers, relying completely on word of mouth. And then all of a sudden, his calendar is not full. And then he's scrambling to try to bring in new business. So that's just not a great business model. And like I said, successful businesses understand this and they know that they have to continuously market and continuously feed that funnel of customers. in order to sustain and in order to survive and be kind of immune to the market fluctuations that happen. The other thing is South Georgia is growing. Chatham, Effingham, Bryan County, we're seeing new residents. We're seeing shifting demographics and evolving needs. So the needs and the interests of people that you had as customers three years ago might be different now because there's new people coming into the community. You know, like it or not, this area is growing and we're getting new people in the community. And what do those people want and need? And if you're not out there continuously working on your brand message and working on thinking about focusing your marketing on your customer and on your ideal customer, you're going to lose confidence. the knowledge of what your customers really want. So that's another reason to really think about your marketing and think about staying present in the market. That's the most important thing. With all of that, again, there's a downloadable document that has all of the reasons for you to continuously market your business and not let up even in times of uncertainty. So when I share my views on marketing topics, I never like to end without giving you clear action steps or action items that you can actually do to make this worth your while. So I'm gonna talk a few minutes about some steps that you can take to make sure that your marketing is really working for you. The first thing I would do is audit your current marketing mix. So I work with so many businesses that don't take the time to step back and kind of analyze what they're doing and make some plans for the future. And this is a really important step. So list every marketing channel that you're currently using. List all the ways that you're showing up to the South Georgia market and where you're looking to grow. That's another really important factor. So where do you want to grow? What products and services do you want to offer? What geographic areas are you looking to improve your presence? And where are you creating the most meaningful connections? Make a list of those things. And then look at the social media insights in your social media platforms look at which posts are getting the most reach. And in this day and age with social media, we're not necessarily looking for likes and followers. We're looking for how much reach does, how many impressions does our content get? Because we're looking to expand our audience, not just speak to the people who are following us. And we'll have a whole another episode about interest media versus social media because the algorithms have completely changed. So in this case, we wanna look at what posts, what content that you're putting out, which ones are getting the most reach, the most impressions, okay? And it's also not as important right now to look at lead generation. So what I wanna see is, How are you establishing yourself as the authority in your industry, in our market, in your industry within our market? How are you establishing yourself as the go-to resource? And then you should also be looking at the specific measurable channels. So we want to look at what you're able to measure, but we also want to look at The things you can't measure. So people think with print advertising, it's not measurable. I don't know how many people are coming to see me because of the ad that I ran. I don't know how many people called our business because they saw our billboard. There are ways to measure that. They're not as specific as social media, but social media isn't the end-all be-all, right? We have to do multiple things. We have to be omni-channel, raise our brand up, you know, all of these ways simultaneously, and they all work together to elevate our brand and get us in front of the right people. So some things you want to do is analyze your web traffic and your Google business profile. And please keep your Google business profile updated and optimized for search. But sometimes when we're doing activities like networking, going to events, sponsoring things in the community, doing print advertising, we want to look at the web traffic. We want to look at how much of an increase in ebb and flow in our traffic that we're getting, how many people found us on Google that month or those couple of months. Those are ways that you can measure the work that's other than social media and some of the specific digital advertising. So these things are kind of higher in the marketing funnel, whereas social media can kind of be at the lower part of the marketing funnel. And so all of these things need to be tracked and measured and listed so that you know what you're spending your money on, What your message is and how you're appealing to your target audience. So this process may take an hour or so. It could take a few hours for you and you might need to bring some people in to help you with it. But we want you to focus on the activities that are building your reputation. building your brand and community presence so that you have a better understanding of where you should be devoting your resources. So if you need help with this, we do this all the time. We can conduct an audit for you. Just reach out to me and I'm happy to help. The next step is to focus on value-driven messaging. So here's the thing with AI, which I am such a fan of the AI tools that are available to us now. I can't even tell you. But There's going to be, and there already is, just a flood of AI-generated content into the marketplace. Social media is already so saturated, so busy and noisy. But now everyone's going to be able to do, everyone's going to be creating their own content, right? And so the content is not going to be that unique in the grand, you know, overall, it's not going to be that unique. And so you your authentic brand voice is going to be more powerful than ever. So ask yourself, what specific problems do you solve better than anyone else? What's your unique story that AI can't replicate? And then how can you demonstrate your value before you ask for the sale? One of the things I tell clients all the time is, When you're out there in the marketplace, when you're on social, when you're advertising, don't just talk about yourself, right? Talk about what you provide to the customer. So you're either solving a problem, you're satisfying a need, or you're fulfilling a desire. It's about the customer. So how do you demonstrate that to the customer? And without just asking for the sale all the time. Put out content that's useful to the audience and then ask for the sale down the road. So Gary Vee has this thing, he wrote a book about it, Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook. So you jab, jab, jab with content that's useful or valuable to the audience and then you ask for the sale. You don't constantly be asking for the sale. That will just turn people away. So the other thing to do is maintain your presence while competitors are pulling back. So this is your competitive advantage window. While others are cutting back, think about things that you can do more of. And you don't have to do everything all at once. So think about maybe increase your social media posting by 25%. Focus only on the channels where you know your ideal customers spend their time. Maybe you've been... Maybe you've been trying to be on three different social media channels all the time, every week. Why don't you think about your customer and where your ideal customer is and maybe just focus on two of those platforms for the next 30 days. Reach out to past customers. This is another way to, it's easier to upsell customers to existing customers than it is to bring in a new customer. So reach out to your current customers, reach out to past customers, provide them with valuable content, again, not just selling to them all the time, or provide them with a really irresistible offer to get them back into the fold. Another thing would be to sponsor a local event. Maybe it's a local event that your competitor dropped out of. or maybe take over an advertising spot that somebody vacated. We had that happen recently where an advertiser that had the back cover of one of our magazines, they had been with us for three years, had that back cover. They decided not to quit advertising, but they moved their ad inside the magazine towards the front. So they gave up the back cover. Well, their competitor heard about that, took over that back cover. So maybe there's an opportunity for you to be, When your competitor is scaling back, you've got that power of loud where you're going to be in the space that they have vacated. So that's another way to maximize your marketing and your advertising dollar or effort by being where your competitor has gone. Build relationships as well. So build relationships through consistency. Nurture relationships with email. Don't neglect your email list. So again, I've said this before. You don't own your followers on social media. When a social media platform goes down, which happened a couple years ago, Facebook went down for a day and we were all just lost, right? We don't own those followers. We don't own that audience. So if we lose that marketing channel, that social media channel, you've lost people. the interaction with those people. So having a good email list is a great way to stay in touch with your past customers, prospects, your current customers. There's just so many ways that you can use email. And some people think email doesn't work. It absolutely works. It's the sustainable marketing channel to be in touch with your customers. Maybe you create a monthly email or newsletter, even if it's just like three paragraphs that you just put out useful content to your list, continue to build your list, create a simple follow-up system for past customers. Like I said before, one of our clients wasn't communicating with their current customers via email until a year later. And, you know, if you stay in front of them periodically, you don't have to do it every single day or every week, but stay in front of them periodically through email, you'd be surprised how loyal those people become. And also, it's so much easier to sell to them again because they're familiar with you. I would argue that even if they don't open your email, they see your name come through once a month. And they remember your company name. They're seeing your name. However frequent you send an email, they're seeing your name. That helps with word of mouth. And again, it's top of mind. You're going to be top of mind to them. And when they need your services, they're going to know. They might not open 10 of your emails that you send over a period of months. But they're going to open one and they're going to become a customer again, or they're going to buy from you again, or they're going to tell their friend to buy from you because your company name is top of mind. So just nurture your email list and pick one thing this month that you can do, such as send out one email that's useful to your target audience. The other thing is engage genuinely on social media. So take... time every week to comment share or respond we manage a lot of social media accounts for clients and we don't always we're not always responsible to comment on when a when an audience person in the audience comments back to one of our clients but you'd be surprised how many people how many businesses don't respond or they're really slow to respond back to messages, posts, comments, that kind of thing. So take a little time each week to genuinely engage on social. Share your fellow business owners content with your followers. It's useful things. We put out a calendar of events on our websites for our magazines. That would be a great thing to share with your readers. or with your social media followers, you know, useful things going on in the area that they might be interested in. So it doesn't always have to be about you and it doesn't always have to be selling something to them. So just take that time to just be genuine on social media. Also showing up at local networking events consistently is so important. I mean, there are a lot of networking events going on in the area. Businesses just like yours are out there And it's really useful. It doesn't cost anything, hardly anything to do. And it's so helpful. I mean, it really is. Being physically present, not just online. So being physically present, especially now, people are craving physical relationships, you know, personal interactions. And so being physically present, taking the time to be out in the community is a great way to boost your business and boost your brand. The other thing is to invest in both digital and traditional channels. As I said, don't put all your eggs in one basket. You know, we know that it takes about 8 to 20 touch points with a potential customer before they will decide to maybe buy from you. 8 to 12. Some people say 8 to 20. So I'm like 8 to 12. 8 to 12 touch points. for someone to consider buying from you. So being omnichannel, meaning being multiple places, use multiple marketing tactics simultaneously and consistently is the way to go. It's the way that you're gonna get the most from your efforts. So some of the digital things you can do is focus on local SEO, search engine optimization, locally optimized content, Keep your Google business profile updated. I can't tell you how many people, how many businesses create their Google business profile and then they never update it. I went to a coffee shop in Pooler a couple months ago for the first time. I was so excited. And I'm an early morning person. So I got there at my normal super early time, which I went to their Google business profile. I saw that they were open. I drove there. they were closed. They didn't open for another hour. So somewhere in there, they had changed their hours, but they didn't update their Google business profile. And that is annoying, right? So keep that updated all the time. We manage, like I said, many social media accounts for our clients. And we just automatically build in a monthly update to their Google business profile as part of our social media strategy because it's just that important, you know? And don't spray and pray with your social media or with your digital advertising. Don't just throw money at things and try different things and not really have a plan because you're just gonna waste money. I can't tell you how many businesses have come to us after they've spent thousands of dollars on different things and none of it worked. And it's because they really didn't have a plan and they didn't have a good, solid brand message or campaign message that was going to be effective. So make sure you take the time to do that. Traditional advertising, local print, radio, sponsoring things, this works incredibly well in the South Georgia market. Don't underestimate. I'm telling you, these print magazines are local print magazines. And this is just a plug for Pooler Magazine, Bryan County Magazine, and Effingham Magazine. But I'm telling you, our advertisers get Amazing results. I mean, even I'm surprised sometimes at how quickly they get customers from their ads. So don't underestimate it. Use it. There are ways to track it. And we can talk about that. Just give me a call and I'll be happy to share how to do that. So lastly, I just want to emphasize the importance of having a solid strategy. So you know what you're going to do. You have a budget of time and money that you're going to spend on it. And you're not going to be easily influenced by the latest technology that comes out or that phone call you get from someone in another country that tells you that your website is not ranking properly and you go and you spend thousands of dollars with this company and you don't even know who they are, right? We've all heard, we've all gotten those phone calls. But have a solid strategy. Track not just the leads, but actual revenue from real customers that, you know, the revenue that comes in from real customers. Review your numbers at least quarterly, if not monthly. So as I said before, look at your Google Analytics, look at your insights from social media, look at what's working and be ready to pivot based on that data. So, you know, if you know your numbers, then you're ready to make adjustments as needed. Okay. I would, Just challenge you maybe in the next 30 days to do that audit that I talked about. List all the places that you're spending money and spending time related to marketing. And then pick one marketing activity that you've been putting off maybe and commit to doing it for the next 30 days. So maybe you haven't been posting to social media regularly. Maybe make a commitment to post to social media daily. Take an hour every Monday. And look at some of the other things that are happening on social media. Maybe comment on a friend's business postings or comment on in a group that's related to your business. If somebody needs help, just monitoring things like that, making some real connections with people. And maybe make five phone calls, networking type phone calls. Maybe call somebody in business that you know or somebody that you met at a networking event and just maybe make that one of your strategies that you use this month. Those are all marketing activities that are really valuable and will really move the needle. But the important thing is here that you're consistent and you're doing things every week that are going to grow your business. And you're not being afraid of the things that are going on in the economy. You have a plan and you're executing your plan. You're thinking strategically and you are being strategically loud when others are being quiet. So your competitors are making that choice right now. They're either doubling down on their marketing or they're pulling back. So which one are you going to be? I hope you'll consider being the one that is out there being strategically loud and using the power of loud. Be consistent. Don't pull back on marketing. And I know that you're going to be successful. So I hope you enjoyed this podcast. If you found it valuable, I sure would love a review. And please share it with other people that you think it might be valuable for as well. And you can absolutely give me a call anytime and also send me an email. I'd love to hear from you. Jan at jdelsermarketing.com. Thanks very much. Until next time.