What Every Marketing Team Needs to Thrive in 2022

​​What do marketing teams need to thrive during times of economic uncertainty? It’s the million dollar question, as fears of a recession continue to grow and layoffs spread.

“For marketing teams to thrive … they need to function as one collaborative, efficient and agile team that can respond quickly,” says Jennifer Stevenson, head of product strategy for Uberall, a company that helps multi-location brands manage customer engagement and conversions across stores. “During Covid, marketing teams around the globe demonstrated they are already masters of agility — they’ll need to apply some of that savvy thinking now.” 

More than four in five small business owners say they’re worried about the impact of a potential recession, according to a survey by the online banking platform Kabbage, but 80% say they’re confident about their business’ survival thanks to the lessons they learned during the Covid-19 pandemic.

With the U.S. economy contracting 0.9% in the second quarter, more businesses are looking at where they can make cutbacks to reduce spending without dampening long-term revenue growth. 

According to a report by the finance automation platform Ramp, small business spending on advertising dropped 14% between May and June 2022, and spending on SaaS dropped 11%.

Local marketing experts warn that this is the wrong approach. 

Stevenson says the economic headwinds businesses face today make it even more important for marketing teams to work smarter in order to drive growth. She believes that businesses should be stepping up their local marketing efforts and running more hyperlocal campaigns if they want to continue to grow through the second half of the year and the first half of 2023.

“Local marketing gives national brands greater local authenticity and a way to show ‘we’re one of you,’” Stevenson says. “From a pure business standpoint, local marketing is most cost-effective. When budgets are limited and times uncertain, local marketing creates better conversions and more reliable monthly earnings.”

Uberall recently released a slate of new platform features with these concerns in mind, including updated local SEO reports, sentiment analysis tools, and a reply assistant that helps businesses increase review response rates across store locations and review platforms. Additional features, like content collections and a new mobile app, are specifically designed to support multi-location retailers by making it easier for them to run local campaigns.

“One of the biggest pain points for retailers today is how to manage the physical and virtual customer journeys. Increasingly, customers see these experiences as interchangeable, and they expect retailers to deliver seamless customer experiences regardless of where and how they want to buy,” Stevenson says. “This hybrid approach is both necessary to improve customer loyalty, as well as to improve business efficiencies.” 

Uberall CEO Florian Hübner says the company’s new tools are designed to help local managers understand the nuances of local search and store-specific reviews for individual operating areas. By enriching local profiles at scale, responding to customer feedback with less effort, and being able to more precisely target marketing strategies, Hübner believes multi-location businesses still have a chance to scale without increasing headcounts.

Unifying the Customer Experience

Marketing teams that not only survive, but actually thrive during a recession will be teams that can effectively drive sustained engagement and long-lasting relationships with consumers. 

What’s the best way to do that? 

In Stevenson’s eyes, it’s all about having a unified approach to the customer experience. Teams that successfully drive sustained engagement and longer-lasting relationships with consumers will come out on top with more social proof, word-of-mouth, and brand loyalty.

“CoreX [Uberall’s customer experience platform] makes it easier for retailers to have a unified approach to the customer experience — delivering greater visibility and brand impact, plus faster conversion earlier in the process,” Stevenson says. “They can also drive more sustained engagement and longer-lasting relationships with consumers … and, ultimately, increased efficiency and revenue growth.”