Tag Archive for: marketing after recession

The recession’s not in the rearview mirror yet, but some indicators show it is receding. And after 18 months of triage, companies and nonprofits alike are assessing the damage.  Here are key areas to review when considering any impact the downturn has had on your brand.

Employment Brand

Those who froze hires but didn’t let anyone go will come out ahead, as their employment brand got a boost. In addition to keeping a good reputation for future hires, your existing staff felt you stood by them in tough times and will reflect that to others.  Regardless, you can still take advantage of the volumes of talent still out there—in all age and experience categories—and snap up some great new hires before year-end.

Customer Brand

If you retained the consistency and value of what you provided throughout the downturn, now is a great time to remind customers and clients of that fact, as well as what makes your organization unique.  Let stakeholders know what steps you took to reign in expenses and overhead so that you could continue to deliver a quality product or service.

Donor Brand

Many nonprofits maintained and even increased donor giving during the downturn because they a) knew their donor base well enough to know who to turn to in a crisis and b) focused on their core values and services. Remind all donors of the value you continued to deliver, and the mission you succeed in every day, even in uncertain times.

Brand Communications

Naturally, some companies had to trim their sails when it came to communications and marketing campaigns during the recession.  Websites are looking a bit tired. Skeleton communications teams are overworked. But wise organizations made ample use of “free” tools like social media. (We all know staff time isn’t free, of course.) Now’s the time to ramp up long-term campaigns, while still leveraging cost-effective measures like user-generated content, print-on-demand, and social networks.

If your brand suffered during the downturn, there’s still time to ramp back up. Look at all the pieces and be sure there are no cracks that could rupture and cause you to miss the next economic boom.