You’ve seen the headlines: many tech companies are facing layoffs with some eliminating upwards of 30% of their workforce.
In situations like these, companies are often forced to cut their marketing budget and team members. But this doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to give up on your goals.
Here’s a breakdown of how you can slow your burn, accelerate growth, and reach your goals. Because ultimately, “Marketing isn’t magic; it’s math.”
For those of us who survived the 2008 crash, the mere mention of “recession” or “layoffs” is enough to strike fear into even the savviest of business owners.
Yet, here we are again, navigating another recession and its impacts on our bottom line.
A perfect storm of inflated valuations, hiring booms, stimulus money, and talk of an impending recession had a dramatic and swift impact on the tech scene. In the past two years, we saw valuations top the charts and billions of dollars deployed from funds across the nation. Startups hired as much talent as they could, to prove out those sky-high valuations and prevent future down rounds.
But as they say, “What goes up must come down.”
The down rounds startups tried so desperately to avoid are now here. Valuations are normalizing, and the inflated salaries of rapid talent acquisition are adding up fast. In May alone, approximately 70+ startups laid off approximately 17,000 workers — a 350% increase from April.
Many of the world’s top tech companies, including Meta, Uber, Salesforce, and Microsoft, as well as crypto companies like Coinbase, have announced plans to slow down hiring and have even rescinded offers or are starting layoffs. Tesla plans to cut 10% of jobs. Robinhood is cutting 9% of its workforce. The list goes on.
Layoff trackers like Layoffs.fyi and Trueup are doing their best to keep up, but plenty of smaller-scale layoffs haven’t yet made the list. The ones that did are also making headlines in news coverage centered around significant work force cuts and waves of nationwide layoffs.
So, is it time to panic?
As a business owner, the better question to ask right now is: “How do we keep growing revenue?” Marketing and sales teams are often the first to get the ax, which can devastate short and long-term revenue growth. After all, when the market shrinks, your customer base shrinks with it, making lead generation even more critical than ever.
If growing revenue without a marketing team to support lead generation sounds impossible, that’s because, in many cases, it is. But we have a secret up our sleeves—and now, so do you.
The secret’s out. Here’s how to drive revenue in a recession.
Enter: the marketing agency.
We predict agencies will be in high demand as leaders seek to grow their revenue without growing their expense line. Yes, really.
Let’s break down marketing spend.
Now we know what you’re thinking: “That’s impossible! How can a high-cost monthly marketing retainer reduce costs?”
Well, it’s simple. As Forbes Council Member Peter Boolkah stated, “Marketing isn’t magic; it’s math.” And the numbers just make sense.
Let’s look at the average monthly fees for full-service marketing at an agency like Marketwake. Average all-in costs typically range from $7,500/month to $25,000/month. These cover the costs of SEO strategy, content creation, paid media management, social media management, email marketing, design work, and plenty more.
Some may look at a $7,500/month retainer and think it’s too high until we compare it to the cost of your headcount.
What does that look like?
- One full-time employee earning an average of $68,000/yr salary = approximately $5,700/month (NOT including taxes, benefits, overhead, etc.)
- Four full-time employees with $68,000/yr. average salary = $22,800/month
Here’s the kicker: it requires more than one person (and honestly more than four) to run a successful marketing department. Compare that headcount to an agency, and that same $22,800 a month can get you access to a team of 14—each with unique expertise to make a marketing strategy that grows revenue.
And when you add in the additional costs of a full-time, in-house marketing team (taxes, benefits, salary, overhead, etc.), now you’re really getting a steal.
Seems like a great way to keep growing while keeping your bottom line VC-approved.
Slow your burn and speed up growth with Marketwake.
Layoffs are never easy. Recessions are never easy. And these are indeed scary times—but you don’t have to go it alone.
Marketwake is a full-service digital marketing agency dedicated to driving growth through the powerful combination of data and creativity. As a growing business ourselves, we understand the toll a downturn can take on revenue and headcount. And frankly, it’s hard—but our highly experienced team can help you shoulder the burden. Here’s how.
What it looks like to work with an agency
We helped many of our clients make it through those notorious “unprecedented times” throughout the pandemic, and today is no different. Look at some of the impressive results we’ve helped our clients achieve.
(Above): This client saw a 29% increase in total keyword growth and a 31% increase in keywords in the top three positions in the SERP in eight months. They also saw a 130% increase in total clicks and a 140% increase in total impressions.
(Above): This client saw a huge improvement in traffic and bookings (transactions) on Instagram in the last three months after introducing story-sized videos (styled like TikTok/Reels) and running exclusive story placements for brand awareness and lead generation ads.
(Above): With the same client, this screenshot shows how much we increased the number of leads during the same period after running a story-only placement test for our lead-gen campaigns for our struggling studios in tandem with the new video creative. The client saw an average lead volume increase of 532% increase and cost per lead decrease of 87%.
(Above): This client’s paid media performance in the same period saw a 110% user increase and a 59% transaction increase!
(Above): This image shows our client’s year-over-year paid media stats, showing a 215% bookings increase and over a 600% user increase (4,196 vs. 1,331 bookings).
(Above): This client saw a 216% increase in organic traffic in less than one year and a 131% increase in website clicks in the last six months!
(Above): This client saw a 70% increase in users from organic traffic YoY and a 41% increase quarter-over-quarter!
(Above): After working with our SEO team for less than a year, this client saw increases of 670% in total keyword rankings, 2,100% in users, 14,000% in users from organic search, and so much more!
(Above): This client saw HUGE YoY growth in new client MRR since working with Marketwake. They’ve worked with us for SEO, content, email, social, paid, GMB optimization, web maintenance, graphic design, and Pardot/Salesforce. We’ve been a HUGE contributor to their long-term growth.
Work with Us
If you’re interested in results like these that drive bottom line growth, let us know! Whether your business needs a short-term marketing stand-in amidst tech industry layoffs or a long-term partner to help you scale, the Marketwake team is standing by.
Want to learn more about our services? Click here. Ready to get started? Let’s chat.
