‘Resilient marketing’ is an approach to marketing and sales that emphasises agility and adaptability in the face of market changes and challenges. The UK manufacturing sector has known no shortage of these fluctuations over the past few years; from Brexit to the pandemic to runaway inflation, it’s been a rollercoaster ride of volatility.
It is the companies with the most resilient marketing strategy that have been able to continue making sales and even growing during economic uncertainty. Now, as the clouds begin to clear and the future starts to look brighter for the sector, resilient marketing has never been more important. This article, we’ll look at why this is the case, and how a more resilient approach to marketing can drive growth for your business and the sector at large.
Is marketing naturally resilient?
In many ways, resilient marketing is a counterintuitive way of approaching sales. The way most businesses do it, in the UK manufacturing sector and elsewhere, is to make hay while the sun shines, lapping up new sales and investing in the business during an economic boom, and pulling down the shutters and trying to sit out any economic downturn. This cyclical approach to sales might make intuitive emotional sense, but it isn’t the most effective way of growing a business long term.
The goal of resilient marketing is to ensure your business remains competitive and profitable regardless of external conditions, and this involves assiduously analysing market trends, customer behaviours, and business performance and using this insight to make the necessary adjustments to your marketing plans.
The role of resilient marketing in driving growth for UK manufacturers
There are three main foundation stones of a resilient marketing strategy, each of which can be achieved through digital inbound marketing. These are:
1) Measurement and analytics: a resilient marketing strategy is as flexible as a willow sapling, not set in stone. To determine which way the wind is blowing, marketing should be approached with a venture capital mindset, carefully analysing market trends to determine the ROI and financial value of each marketing action, both short-term and long-term. The data will show you how best to invest your money for the strongest returns, and may involve targeting new customer segments, leveraging new marketing channels, introducing new special offers, or simply adjusting the messages you use in your content.
4) Cost efficiency: resilient marketing requires every penny of your marketing budget to be spent efficiently, lowering your acquisition costs by identifying and eliminating wasted time and money across your marketing processes. The most effective way of doing this is by investing in a marketing automation platform, such as hopes but, that helps you improve the way that internal resources are used but automating repetitive tasks, streamlining the nuts and bolts of your marketing strategy, and making sure no opportunities are missed.
3) Agility: to be resilient is to be agile, and to be agile you must have the capacity and willingness to respond quickly to changing market conditions and opportunities. There’s no use having your marketing strategies mapped out to the last detail years in advance and rolled out at set times come what may. It’s better to have a defined framework for marketing, within which you can roll out the appropriate content to meet the requirements of your customers where they are at the present time. This will help you capitalise on unexpected opportunities, as well as speak to the requirements of unexpected supply chain disruptions, inventory shortfalls, and labour issues among your customers.
Find out more
To find out more about inbound marketing and how it can strengthen the resilience of your business so you can drive growth this year, please contact one of our marketing specialists today by calling 01332 343281.
Image Source: Unsplash
