These days, a lot of people are talking about the possibility of an economic recession. As we enter an economic downturn, it might be tempting to try and cut costs by getting rid of your digital marketing investments.

That would be a mistake.

In fact, marketing in a recession is more important than ever before.

Here are seven reasons why marketing in an economic downturn can be beneficial to your small business.

During an economic crisis, you need to focus on keeping the customers you already have. After all, you likely won’t be bringing in many new customers anytime soon.

One of the big appeals your business has for existing customers is that they already know and trust you. They know your products and services are solid. Therefore, they will likely want to support you during this time.

Digital marketing helps keep you in your customers’ minds by keeping them aware of your brand. As a result, more people will think of your business when they need your services or products.

If you go dark during an economic downturn, you will lose that brand awareness. You want people to know about you. Not posting on social media or your website takes you out of the customers’ minds.

What’s a good way for your business to inspire confidence? By showing that even in a recession, you are still there.

An online presence through SEO and social media shows that your brand can tough it out through the worst conditions. After all, people are attracted to businesses that are strong and resilient in times of crisis.

You can inspire that kind of confidence through digital marketing. A small business recession gives you the opportunity to promote the appearance of stability. You can achieve this through social media posts, web content, and other marketing tools.

Was your gut reaction to a looming recession to cut marketing investments? Chances are you’re not alone.

But you don’t want to follow in your competitors’ footsteps. As your competitors decrease their marketing budget, the amount of “marketing noise” also goes down. Therefore, you won’t have to shout as loudly for your message to be heard.

During the 1990-1991 economic recession, McDonald’s decreased their advertising. Pizza Hut and Taco Bell seized on this opportunity and continued their marketing strategy. As a result, Pizza Hut saw a 61% increase in sales, and Taco Bell had a 40% increase.

Meanwhile, McDonald’s suffered a decline of 28%.

Pizza Hut and Taco Bell took advantage of less “marketing noise” and saw sales increase because of it. In this way, staying the course with your marketing budget gives you a leg up over those who don’t.

Unlike traditional advertising, digital marketing gives you the freedom to alter and update your strategy during a constantly changing time.

You can tweak your marketing plan to fit into whatever is happening in real-time. These updates show your customers that you are considerate and knowledgeable of the situation at hand.

Expert digital marketers can quickly create social media posts, emails, and content to reflect your business positively.

Increasing your content also gives you more opportunities to reach more customers and stay at the front of their minds.

There are also going to be a lot of changes happening to how your customers spend their money. Behaviors and tendencies are going to change. But, with digital marketing, you can track those results to adapt better.

Knowing what content your customers are most interested in will be valuable information. And you can modify your business strategy based on that information.

When you track and measure your results, you’re also investing in the future. After all, it’s worth knowing how your customers behave during economic downturns because you will have a better idea of how to react the next time this happens.

Traditional advertising does not have the benefit of targeting customers based on different criteria. Instead, it gets broadcast to many people who have no interest in your company. That’s a lot of money being wasted on consumers who don’t care.

Digital marketing breaks down interests, demographics, and more to find out who would be most likely to patronize your small business.

Email marketing, for example, allows you to test subject lines and segment your recipients in order to maximize on who sees it. Therefore, money won’t be wasted on delivering a message to someone who doesn’t want to hear it.

The recession won’t last forever. And when the market does bounce back, you want to be ready.

Taking the time now to build up your search engine optimization (SEO) rankings through high-quality content will pay off in the future. So, by the time your competitors start back up, you will have already been putting in the work.

It takes time to build up quality rankings on Google. But the more you invest, the better it gets. It’s like a train accelerating on a track. It’s going to take a little bit, but once the momentum is there, you don’t want to stop it.

Recessions are hard. There’s no way around it. And it can be daunting to see how to recession-proof your business. But with digital marketing, it’s easier to stay in the game.