How to Generate Leads During Economic Downturns (on a Budget)

Written By Danielle Fauteaux

Yes – COVID-19 is wreaking lots of havoc on the economy right now. Economic swings happen and you can (and should) prepare your business to ride the waves and generate leads even during economic downturns both now and in the future.

Each of these activities for generating leads during economic downturns falls into 3 main categories.

  • Generate unique content to promote.
  • Promote your unique content.
  • Keep in touch with your audience.

Here are several low-cost ways to get started in each of these three categories.

Generate unique content to promote

  1. Write a blog
  2. Film a video
  3. Record a podcast
  4. Create premium content, like an eBook, special report, infographic, etc.

All of these four types of unique content can be either situation specific (ie COVID-19 related) or foundational to your overall content marketing strategy (ie “how much does it cost”). The point is during an economic downturn, you usually have more time to work on your business instead of in your business. So get started and be consistent.

At the crux of lead generation tactics are lead capture funnels that utilize a combination of content generation, promotion, and follow-up with your audience. You have to have some sort of low risk way for a prospect to convert into a lead – usually via valuable content accessible in exchange for a prospect’s email address so that you can build your email list.

If you don’t yet have a lead conversion funnel on your site, start there. Create the lead capture content, landing page, thank you page, and calls-to-action that lead prospects to the lead capture. If you have a lead capture already, you can start promoting your unique content even more during economic downturn.

Promote Your Unique Content

  1. Send more emails. Yes, everyone and the dog is swimming in so many emails right now AND YET email engagement rates are still high, signalling that your audience either wants to hear from you during times of uncertainty or they are so bored that even your emails are interesting enough to open. You decide. 😉 To get you started, here are the components of 3 highly effective types of emails.
  2. Share more social media posts. I recommend focusing your time and effort on Google My Business, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube for most businesses. I would recommend posting as much as feasible and increasing your boosting budget to promote more of your content.
  3. Increase your reach with extra ad spend. Yes – spend more on ads during economic uncertainty. Why? Because many of your competitors are likely to have decreased their ad spend on Google Ads, YouTube Ads, Facebook Ads, and Facebook Boosted Posts. This means your ad spend will generate more value for the cost, assuming the ad campaign converts well to begin with. Considering the stay at home order related to COVID-19 specifically more people are online finding things to occupy their time with.

Keep in touch with your audience

  1. Encourage leadership to write content and emails. Seeing an email from the owner of a company with timely information speaks volumes to show your audience that the leadership of your business is connected to the situation. Naturally, this is easier for small businesses to achieve most authentically, but medium and large businesses should also consider sending routine content written directly by leadership.
  2. Promote your content more than usual. Stay relevant and stay top of mind during economic downturns. Even if your audience is now on the fence about purchasing your services or products, if they are truly a qualified buyer they will circle back around when able, assuming they remember who you are and why they considered you in the first place.
  3. Solve your audience’s new problems. During economic changes, and especially right now during COVID-19 thousands of new problems have risen to the top of your audience’s minds. How you can step into their shoes and help make their lives better by solving one or two of their NEW problems?

Economic downturns are not the time to cut back on marketing efforts – they are the time to INCREASE content generation and promotion. I wrote and promoted this content in a one hour sitting to accomplish just that. Now it’s your turn. Today – right now even – go

  • Write or film a piece of relevant content
  • Point to a lead conversion offer
  • Share it on social media
  • Boost your post with $5-10 on Facebook
  • Send an eBlast to your email list

Danielle Fauteaux

Hi! I’m Danielle. I’m passionate about helping creatives recognize their value and place in this world, passionate about helping leaders regain control over their responsibilities, passionate about encouraging others to live more meaningful lives; and passionate about doing more with less. I guide creative firms through the Momentum Framework to achieve their revenue and profit goals while falling back in love with the mission they originally set out with.