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audience engagement

Marketing During a Recession: Time to Get Excited

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I know what you’re thinking as you read that title, “What the heck is wrong with you? Why are you excited for a recession?”

To be clear … I ain’t.  I’m just as annoyed, frustrated, and stressed out as you.  Every trip to the grocery store feels like a gut punch where the bill is high and every item you buy looks like it’s been shrunk down to the size of a Snickers mini.  Not a fan!

But when it comes to those of us who run a business, I’m excited because now is the time where we can truly separate ourselves from our competitors.  Super rich guy Warren Buffet once said, “Be fearful when others are greedy, and be greedy only when others are fearful.”  That’s where we are right now.  Fear is HIGH. Budgets are being slashed, jobs cut, plans changed.

So what do we need to do?  The exact opposite!

I know it’s scary. Trust me, I spend times at night thinking, “What in this house can I sell on eBay if I need extra money?,” but I also know now is the time that those who ACT are the ones who succeed.  And the best part?  There’s TONS of research to back this up.

In terms of marketing, companies who stayed the course not only saw an increase in business during a recession, they also saw continued growth AFTER the recession.  And this is from data dating back to the 1920’s!

Marketing budgets are one of the first things to be cut during a recession, so those that don’t cut theirs are met with decreased competition and higher audience share.  Their brands appear as strong and stable and their customer base responds accordingly.  One can easily argue that now is the perfect time to INCREASE your marketing budget.

At the same time, I know that’s not feasible for some businesses, but there’s other ways to succeed.  Now is an absolutely perfect time to be there for your audience.  Think about it … they’re dealing with the same stresses and frustrations, so when you are able to provide something truly meaningful to them, it helps ease that burden (even if just for a short time).  That’s not something someone soon forgets, and that will connect them to your brand in a very strong way.

The best brands understand they’re more than just a product or service, they are something that makes people FEEL.  People love brands almost as much as they love people (sometimes more depending on the person), and right now they’re desperate for connection and validation.  So when others panic and think small, now is the time to get excited and think big!

Three Dirty Words … “Social Media Manager”

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As someone who helps small businesses with their branding strategies and digital presence, I’ve always loathed the term “social media manager,” because in my opinion that isn’t the true path to brand success.


Sure, having a strong presence on social media is important, but if you’re putting all your eggs into that basket, then you are doing your brand a disservice because you are now completely reliant on the “algorithm overlords” of a handful of billion dollar tech companies.


And since I don’t want my The JPG Agency clients putting all their eggs into that basket, I sure as heck don’t want to be putting all of MINE in there either. To me, true brand success is figuring out methods for owning your own audience engagement by figuring out how to engage with them directly through methods controlled by YOU. Social media management is just one piece of that puzzle.


The role of “social media manager” needs to evolve, and you can see that evolution in this Social Media Today report.

Approach Your Business With “Little Dog Attitude”

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I have a little dog named Francy.  She’s a muttley rat terrier(ish) sort of dog that weighs all of about 14 pounds (we have a cat that’s bigger than she is).  She spends most of her life curled up on a pillow, a lap, or a blanket … to the point that I’ve always said she’d be perfectly content if she was a dog with no legs that had to be carried around everywhere she went.  She’s super sweet, cuddly, and friendly to just about anyone and anything on earth … until she sees a big dog.

Then … “little dog attitude” kicks in and Francy ain’t gonna take no crap from nobody.

I’ve seen this little dog launch herself into the air, land on top of a dog four times her size, and pin them to the ground in a growling fit of unexplained rage.  Why? I honestly have no clue.  I don’t know why this dog spends 98% of her life perfectly content to be in some sort of snuggle position, only to turn into a rabid beast with more attitude than Conor McGregor’s pre-fight interview.

But what I do know is this … that’s “tiny dog attitude,” and that’s how every small business owner should operate.  Don’t be afraid of the big guys … attack them!  Better yet … COPY THEM!!!!

These large corporations can spend millions (or billions) of dollars on marketing, advertising, and branding on a level that a small business will never be able to equal.  However, what a small business can do is study the big dogs, and then emulate these practices for their own brand.

Before Wal-Mart was … well … Wal-Mart … Sam Walton built his empire by doing one thing amazingly well … studying his competition.  He walked around other stores, paid attention to how things looked, where items were located, how shoppers behaved, etc etc. He then took this data back to his own store and used it to improve his own customer experience to a level that nobody else was even considering.  He had “tiny dog attitude” back then that allowed him to grow into one of the biggest dogs of them all.

Soooo … that brings us to the present, where we can see what the big dog is up to, and that my friends, is first-party data collection.  That’s right, the JPG Agency mantra of OWNING YOUR AUDIENCE is in full effect! (Excuse me while I sprain my shoulder patting myself on the back for a minute.)

Wal-Mart knows that the key to their continued dominance is to know, first hand, everything they possibly can about their customer, their wants and needs, their purchasing patterns, their lifestyle interest, their moods, and just about anything else they can get their hands on.  And while this data leads to an enhanced shopping experience for their customers, what it also does is give them an additional cash cow that they can use with others.

Did you know Wal-Mart made $2.1 billion dollars in ad REVENUE last year?  That’s right, other brands are paying Wal-Mart to get access to the data they’ve collected, and the home of “Everyday Low Prices” is poised to become one of the top ten ad agencies in the country within the next five years.

So how do we apply this to our “tiny dog attitude” lesson for the day?  It’s simple … we OWN OUR AUDIENCE.  We don’t rely on some social media algorithm to reach our customers or PPC ad spend or whatever.  We develop ways to obtain the contact information of our customers in a way that allows us to directly engage with them without having to depend on anybody else to do it for us.  Nobody … and I repeat … NOBODY is going to understand your business better than you, so why in the world would we put all of our reliance onto somebody else to do it for us?

Is there a place within our success path to do things like social media marketing, digital ad spends, and things like that?  Absolutely!  And we here at the JPG Agency are happy to help you do that, but we also believe very strongly in helping you develop ways to grow your direct data streams with your customers, because we know that is the true key to growth and long term success.  Don’t let the big dogs strut around like they control everything … launch yourselves into the air and pin them to the ground yourself!

Here’s some additional articles/resources for the details discussed in this article today:

Walmart made $2.1 billion in advertising last year—here’s how

Walmart Media Group Rebrands to Walmart Connect in Bid to become a Top 10 US Ad Biz

Walmart moves further into livestream shopping

A Bad Digital Impression is Costing You Revenue!

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Having a strong digital presence isn’t a luxury in 2022, it’s a NECESSITY. This article will open your eyes when you see things like “increasing a customer’s satisfaction score can increase their spending by up to 37%. Reducing the effort required to complete a task online can lead to a 23% increase in the amount they spend.”

Plain and simple … making a sucky digital impression with your customers will cost you money almost immediately and probably send future business elsewhere. And small business often gets the shaft in this equation because they don’t have huge budgets to have large marketing departments or to hire expensive agencies.

That’s why at The JPG Agency we’re committed to providing those opportunities to small businesses at a price point they can afford. Small businesses are the backbone of so many industries, and they flat out DESERVE the same access to these resources as the big dogs. So happy to have a squad in place that feels the same way!

Thank you Nicole Cooper for sharing this article with me and MediaPost for putting it together https://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/372174/revenue-lost-by-poor-digital-experience-can-now-be.html

#digitalmarketing #socialmediamarketing

Own Your Audience

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There’s been a great deal of talk lately (or “noise” might be the better word) about Apple vs. Facebook vs. Google vs. Advertising vs. Privacy.  I could sit here and try to dissect the entire hot mess, but really you just have a bunch of billion dollar companies fighting with all of them trying to look like the “hero” to the court of public opinion.  

It’s kind of like when Directv would fight with a network like ESPN over money.  Each side would tell you how the other is the “bad guy” and how you need to go complain to them to “do what’s right.”  Simple fact is, no matter who “wins” this battle of digital privacy, there’s still going to be a million ways to track individual users and “new and improved” ways to squeeze money out of small businesses for ad spending.

I bring all of this up to hammer home this message … Stop just relying on other resources to reach your audience! OWN YOUR AUDIENCE YOURSELF!!!

Yes … using companies like Facebook and Google to advertise to a targeted audience is a useful resource, but don’t let it be your ONLY resource.  When you do that, you are always at the mercy of their system. They control the algorithms and will in turn control who sees your information and how often. When you own your own audience, YOU have that control.

It is absolutely essential that you explore ways to gather the contact information of your customer base, and then use that information strategically in ways that reward your customers and increase your revenue.  There are many ways to do this … email databases, loyalty programs, and text message reward systems are some examples.  And the beautiful thing about systems like these is that when you send something to your audience in these ways, EVERY single one of them will receive it. 

Meanwhile, Facebook will sit here and squash your organic reach down to about 10% of your audience and then tell you to spend money for the “privilege” of reaching the rest.  Why?  Because they own the audience and get to decide how to utilize it.  When YOU own the audience, you’re the one who calls those shots.

When done right, social media marketing can absolutely be an effective way to boost your business. However, things are always evolving and changing, so it’s entirely possible that there will be a day that social media marketing doesn’t exist or it least isn’t the shiny new marketing toy. When you’re the one who owns your audience, you’re already prepared for that evolution and can continue to reach them in the most effective ways possible.