With the current economic climate in the news, consumers are reassessing their spending habits. Interest rate increases, inflation, and the rise in the cost of living contribute to households reassessing their spending.
And it’s understandable that some businesses see this as a time to reconsider their budgets, and marketing is often one that’s flagged. However, economic downturns present an opportunity for businesses to invest in communicating their brand and services.
Renowned developer and builder David Maiolo, Director of RODA Developments, has firsthand experience of successfully navigating his business through economic downturn. He believes marketing is critical. “If there are less people building, you need to be seen by those who are. Because the counter question becomes: How would switching off your marketing get your business in front of these potential clients? The simple answer is: it won’t.”
Additionally, David notes that in a volatile pricing environment, current contracts slip on margins. “Therefore, you need new clients on your latest pricing structures. And you need to nurture the pipeline of these new clients with effective marketing,” says David.
Here’s three reasons why businesses should be marketing right now.
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Different consumer mindsets
Some consumers are short-term thinkers and will focus on the immediate future. Others think long-term and plan months ahead. By engaging a long-term strategy for communicating your brand and offering, you’re ensuring both types of consumers remain aware of what you do. The frequency of communication is important so that consumers remember you for when they are ready to engage your services.
By maintaining your communication, you’re ensuring that all consumers see your brand and what you do on a regular basis. And this helps them remember your name when they are ready to engage your services.
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The Contact to Contract Journey
Building a home is a highly involved purchase decision. For many people, it will be the largest investment they make in their lives. Therefore, they carefully consider elements such as timing, cost of building, and the opportunity cost for what else they could be doing with the money invested.
These decisions take time, and the average time it takes for people to begin considering building to contacting a builder to signing a contract is nine months. If these people are seeing your brand and offering throughout their decision process, they will be more likely to remember you. Valuable information that’s available for free also builds trust, and this can be a key element when making highly involved purchase decisions – people feel safe with businesses who are confident and capable.
By ensuring your potential customers see your brand and services throughout all kids of economic times, they’ll feel a familiarity. And when it comes to deciding who to engage for their building, you will be top of mind for their consideration.
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Investing for the long-term
Australians love property, and the Australian property sector serves as a significant investment opportunity. History shows property is a solid investment, and hence people invest in their homes to build their overall portfolio nest eggs.
Some investors see more difficult economic times as an opportunity to invest and prioritise property purchase as part of their strategy. While they may not immediately build or renovate, they will be researching building and construction partners for the future.
Communicating to current and potential clients ensures you remain in their consideration set for when the time comes for them to begin investing in their property portfolio. Sharing your projects and updates keeps them informed of the work you are doing, and the work you can do for them when they are ready.
Building Industry Specialists
As Building and Construction industry specialists, Sea Salt Marketing’s digital marketing expertise allows us to work quickly to optimise the kinds of messages you communicate to your audience and when you communicate them. We work with data across numerous platforms to optimise and test what messages will resonate with your target market.
We treat your marketing investment like our own, and with month-by-month arrangements, we can scale to your requirements whatever the economic environment.
If you’d like to talk with us about how to best target your audience, get in touch today.
