Marketing During Inflation: How to Adapt & Thrive

Use these tips and best practices to adapt your business and marketing during inflation to continue growing.

1. Ruthlessly scrutinize and manage your costs and profit margins

There are a few different ways you can do this effectively.

Dissect and really understand your costs and profit margins

Getting a high-resolution view of spending is the first step. If you don’t already, try to get visibility into all of your expenses through accounting software like QuickBooks or a similar software. Understand how your profit varies by product or services. Also, don’t undervalue your own time in your calculations.

Get creative

For example, reduce the number of goods and services offered to stabilize costs. Can you close one day a week that is particularly not busy? Can you make something self-service that used to require an employee? Some examples are the use of QR for payments at restaurants, Dominos giving you a discount if you pick up your pizza, and hotels only cleaning your room if you request it.

Streamline and automate processes

Look for ways to reduce the number of steps involved in a task. Can technology help automate something that has been done by an employee or yourself? Can you simply stop doing something without much impact? Don’t undervalue your own time!

Drive employee productivity

Look for ways to make employees more productive. But keep in mind employee satisfaction and also look for ways to make your employees happy. You don’t want to lose your employees—especially in the midst of a labor shortage. You can incentivize performance with attractive benefits, rewards, and a great business culture.

Cut waste

Be ruthless about spending. What are “nice to have” purchases you can do without? Are there certain items that might not be too much but you just don’t use? Can you find monthly subscriptions or services to cancel?

Look through your accounting software and/or credit card statements carefully. Worst case you can bring back an expense if you realize you need it.

We’ve also seen how much we can do over Zoom/Teams meetings. Do you really need to travel and do something face to face? Sometimes yes, but often not.

Try to differentiate between strategic and nonstrategic spending. Don’t cut costs that could hurt your customers’ or employees’ experiences down the road.

Search for other suppliers

Maybe your particular supplier is more expensive than alternatives. Now is the time to compare costs and find a supplier who can help you keep your costs low.

Stock up on supplies now

If you are fairly confident prices will keep rising, you can buy more supplies now and be protected from a future price increase. Buy in bulk where prudent.

Source: LocaliQ

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