The pandemic has taken a significant toll on businesses, particularly their marketing budget. According to a survey conducted in 2020, 65% of marketers anticipate a decrease in their annual marketing budget. This requires Marketers to focus primarily on SEO, as it is the most cost-effective digital channel for acquiring visitors long term.
Why marketers are relying on SEO during this downturn
When participants were asked, “Given the developing situation with COVID-19, what do you anticipate will happen with your marketing budget?” 45% said it would decrease slightly, 27% said it would stay the same, and 20% said it would reduce significantly. Potential cuts to the budget can encourage marketers to analyse different cost-effective strategies like organic search, which is long-term compared to other channels.
86% of participants said their marketing goals would be more challenging to achieve this year, given reduced budgets and other circumstances. Relying solely on paid media, digital advertising, and paid search is effective short-term compared to organic search. Asked “Will SEO be more or less important during this time?,” 63% said SEO would gain in importance either slightly (34%) or steeply (29%). Only 5% responded that SEO would decrease in importance.
Organic search was seen by 66% as these marketers’ top-performing channel last year, followed by paid search (50%) and email (50%). Social media was named the top-performing channel by just 14%. These insights will drive future marketing decisions in a downturn. If confronted by a global recession, businesses will need to cut costs where possible, and marketing departments are the first target. Therefore, they are under pressure to ensure their channels have a high ROI to prevent wasteful expenditures.
It is critical now to allocate budget to a cost-efficient, long-term strategy like organic search. SEO targets quality traffic; it targets consumers who are looking for your business or a similar business. SEO gets more clicks than PPC. Although PPC ads appear above organic rankings, 71.33% of searches result in a click on an organicresult on the first page.
If you are considering investing in SEO, we can help create a strategy that best suits your business and improves your site’s ranking on search engine results page. For more information please enquire with us on enquiries@nextandco.com.au or 1300 191 950.