Each day there seems to be more and more negative news about the economy - I guess it helps sell papers (or maybe increases CPMs?). Either way, as more negativity spreads throughout the country, there will be increased fear of businesses closing up and people losing their jobs. If you’re an affiliate marketer or entrepreneur and have the cash, you can use the bad economy to your advantage.
Companies and Their Websites Will Be Shutting Down
As smaller websites find it difficult to remain profitable, you can use this time to buy them at a discount. Getting some money for their site is better than none at all. You can use their website to get into a new vertical, secure a tighter grip in one you’re already in or just use it for added SEO purposes. In capitalism, when one person is having a bad day, it creates opportunity for someone else.
Expand Into a New Vertical
Sounds a bit crazy, but if you have the ability to take on additional risk, expanding your business to another niche can be very rewarding. Established companies have to keep volume up to maintain their profitability and the structure they have built up over the years. Being new allows you to start from scratch and create a better solution than what is currently being offered, or at least a more efficient one. You’re also able to start on a much smaller scale and grab “low hanging fruit” as you grow the business. The sites that do shut down will still leave behind profitable customers (just not enough to sustain their own business, but can be profitable for your own). The best part about this is - if you are successful - you will have a huge lead over the competition as the economy gets better. You’ll already have found the efficiencies in a bad market so you should be able to grow faster as consumers start to spend more.
Strengthen Your Position In Your Current Niche
Well known, trusted companies will have a much easier time weathering out a weak economy compared to those companies who got by because they were just getting the overflow from high demand. As an example, just take a look at the search industry. You’ll see hundreds if not thousands of firms offering PPC or SEO services. I think SEO might be a bit more prevalent since most web developers seem to be experts at it or at least think they can offer it to clients. Either way, if everybody and their mother are making money in an industry, it is usually because supply isn’t meeting the demand. As the two come back into equilibrium, the weak will die and the strong will not only survive but grow by taking the customers away from the weaker competitors. You can maintain strength in your niche by having a good business model and providing a better product, customer service or some other added value that the competition isn’t. If your product isn’t much different than your competitors’, there are other ways to add value for consumers, but in terms of marketing, tracking and analytics becomes key to maintaining efficiency.
The marketers who are able to survive and grow in a rough economy will be the ones who are able to see a full picture of their accounts. The more accurate and detailed your tracking is, the bigger the edge you have against your competitors - that is, as long as you can correctly analyze the data you’re seeing. If profits become tight, the marketers who are able to maintain the greatest degree of efficiency will be the ones who survive.
Overall, a tough economy is just that, tough. While the online advertising space, particularly paid search, may not see as many negative affects as say, the banking industry, it’ll still be harder to compete than it was before. With anything you do, whether it is trying to grow, trying to maintain or trying to survive, the opportunities are still out there - it’s up to you to find them.
Btw, instead of seeing the glass as half empty or even half full, find a way to add more water. As housing prices go down and the economy gets weaker, other industries can experience a boom.
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