This document provides advice for marketers on how to adapt and remain effective during periods of industry turbulence. It discusses challenges marketers may face such as decreased budgets, reduced teams, and an increased need to prove marketing value. The document then offers recommendations including identifying roadblocks, determining priorities, learning efficiencies, building measurement plans, avoiding traps of being silent or making unnecessary changes, and emphasizing the importance of communication during turbulent times.

1. Adapting to
Industry Turbulence
How to be a Lean Marketer in Any Environment

2. What counts as turbulence
for marketers?
Image by:Tim Sackton, Flickr

3. Shifting audience needs
and behaviors

4. Example:
Your client traditionally sponsors a big
industry conference every year, but due
to market conditions, their customers
have cut conference attendance from
their budgets.
Image by: Dave Dugdale, Flickr

5. Inconsistencies in brand
messaging and customer
promises

6. Example:
Your website messaging is all about oil
exploration, but due to the industry
downturn, you have halted exploration
activities.
Image by: Ross Huggett, Flickr

7. Skewed perception of
cost and value

8. Example:
Before turbulence hit, your client had
planned a large marketing campaign
launch. In light of recent layoffs, many
employees are now grumbling about the
expense of the campaign.
Image by: Leap Kye, Flickr

9. Image by: Mitchell Kohley, Flickr
How does it affect me
and my role?

10. Decreased marketing budget
What do I have to sacrifice?
How can I reprioritize my initiatives to get the most
impact?
Will I have enough people to get things done?
How can we expect to see an impact without my or my
clients’ full budget?

11. Reduced team
How do I move forward when resources I need are no
longer available to me?
How do I regain momentum?
All my advocates are gone or busy...who’s left to fight
my cause?
What if my main client contact is no longer there?

12. Increased need to prove your
value/ROI of your job
How do I keep proving marketing is worthwhile?
How do I move the needle?
What metrics can I track all by myself?
What is the most important ROI to track in this difficult
time?

13. Am I next?
Image by: cjuneau, Flickr

14. Get back on track.
Image by: Leonid Mamchenkov, Flickr

15. Identify roadblocks
Write down your biggest obstacles to success
• Brainstorm what you need to overcome these
challenges
• Consider how you can modify your plan or
process to work around them
• Ex. Do you need to remove people from the
process who muddy the waters?
Image by: Myrtle Beach TheDigitel, Flickr

16. Determine what needs to
happen to move forward
•Refine your marketing goals if necessary
•Don’t be afraid to scrap projects if the conditions
have changed and you need to reset — but give
yourself time to think about all the consequences
if you do

17. Take a realistic inventory
of your resources
• Determine which resources are still available to you
• Consider budget, people and time
• Identify remaining advocates for your marketing plan
(mentors, supervisors or project managers, etc.)

18. Learn to work more efficiently
•Investigate tools to bolster your efforts or crowdsource projects
•Turn to social media to leverage user-generated content
•Experiment with online tools to see if you can work more efficiently
•If possible, break larger projects down into more accomplishable
phases to reduce the strain on your resources
•Make progress while mapping out your plan for the next stage

19. Prioritize based on impact
and long term payoff
• Be careful not to cut back on small projects that seem like
distractions. They may impact the success of key initiatives
• Don’t make reactive choices based on short term resource issues
• Recognize areas where it would be more efficient to outsource
•Try to get the most life out of a single deliverable: Brainstorm how can
you repurpose, re-promote or templatize projects.

20. Examples
•Can you build just one landing page template that
will work for all your campaigns with only minor
copy and image changes?
•Instead of producing two blog posts a month, can
you cut back to one and focus more heavily on
content promotion?

21. Build buy-in for your
initiatives.
Image by: popofatticus, Flickr

22. Trace the ROI of your
Marketing Plan

23. Business Objective
Marketing Strategy
Tactic
Take over the marketing world!
Build a visibility program
Start a breakfast event series
Formula Example

24. Business Objective
Marketing Strategy
Tactic
Take over the marketing world!
Build a visibility program
Start a breakfast event series
Formula Example

25. Build a measurement plan
KPIs for an example breakfast event series:
• # of attendees
• Event-specific social media impressions and
engagement
• Various pre- and post-event email marketing metrics,
if applicable
• # of qualified leads

26. Report on your progress
• Create a reporting structure to stay accountable
and in touch with your boss
• Example: Schedule a monthly reporting
meeting
• Discuss next steps and recommendations, not
just metrics

27. Recruit advocates
• Add more resources to team
• Added legitimacy and a bigger cohort/core team
• More power to shift attitudes internally
• Easier to communicate how marketing is a shared
business goals

28. Stay on the same page as
Project Leads
• Check in with your team lead or client contact on
any changing priorities
• Be mindful of what your client is going through:
have empathy
• Manage up: understand how you can make your
boss’ job easier
• Show that you’re willing to learn new skills and
wear more hats

29. “As marketers, we are are often so focused on our external
audience (our prospects and customers) — but we need to
keep our internal audience (our management and co-
workers) in mind as well. How are you communicating
what you do and what value you offer to the organization
— in terms that are important to the people you work
with?”
Michele Linn - VP of Content, Contently
@michelelinn

30. Avoid traps.
Image by: royalty free, Flickr

31. Trap #1
During a turbulent period, you
(or your boss) may be tempted to
“lay low until the storm passes”

32. THIS IS THE TIME
FOR INCREASED
COMMUNICATION,
NOT LESS!
Image by: Evan Forester, Flickr

33. If you’re silent, clients and internal audiences will
look for information elsewhere.
You don’t want to look responsible for
lost sales or reduced confidence in your company
because you weren’t communicating.

34. Example:
A news outlet reports rumors that your
company is in a downward spiral. If you’ve
gone silent and have not communicated
assurance to prospective clients, they may
choose to partner with a competitor who
appears more stable.

35. Instead:
Emphasize the importance of remaining
pro-active with marketing.
Don’t let negative press or widespread
rumors fester.

36. Trap #2
Due to turbulence, you feel pressure to
make a change for the sake of change.

37. REFINE GOALS OR
ADJUST METHODS,
BUT DON’T LOSE SIGHT
OF YOUR OVERALL
BUSINESS STRATEGY!Image by: sittered, Flickr

38. Instead:
Look for opportunities, but don’t destroy
processes that still work just because you
panicked.
Beware changes not based on strategy:
If there’s no pay off towards your business
objectives, you’re just creating more work.

39. And remember…

40. THERE’S NO CRYING
IN BASEBALL.
Image by: TMAB2003, Flickr

41. “I have always been told to hope for the best, plan for the
worst, and always keep moving forward. Sometimes we
have to recognize that our projects might not be
recoverable, our boss might leave and you've lost your
internal advocate, or the business you are working for just
isn't working, and you get laid off. ”
John Doherty - Founder, Credo
@dohertyjf

42. “One of the best things young professionals can do is to
have side projects. I have talked to many hiring managers
who look for people who have outside passions to which
they can apply their marketing skills, such as writing a
blog, creating a video series and building an audience.
You are more valuable to your organization when they
know you have this kind of energy and skills.”
Michele Linn - VP of Content, Contently
@michelelinn

43. Further Reading
• The Role of Brand in a Downturn: Spotlight on
the Oil Industry
• How to Build ROI and Accountability into Your
Marketing Plan

44. Thank you.
If you want to learn more about Cynthia, Laura, and Caitlin,
or BrandExtract, visit us at BrandExtract.com
Twitter: @BrandExtract