Everywhere you look these days, it seems marketing budgets are being slashed and teams are finding themselves having to do more with less.

Meta losing two thirds of its value is a microcosm of a larger problem: paid advertising is facing issues on many fronts, with Twitter and Meta in a mess, and Apple’s change to their privacy policy leaving vendors disappointed with results from paid online ads. With the ever-present “recession” looming (even if it is the by-product of someone sneezing and everyone panicking) companies are becoming twitchy. Marketing strategies, more than ever, need to be delivering for a lower cost.

Tom Matthews is the founder of recently established Cleveland SEO agency, Clear Eyes. Here, he speaks about how a switch to prioritizing search and first party data is a smart move in today’s marketing climate.

SEO is perfect for businesses with less cash flow

SEO is a good option if you don’t have hundreds of thousands to spend over the course of a year because, after the initial audit and work, the ongoing monthly costs are going to be very manageable for a business of any size. Most of the initial technical work only needs to be done once, and often not revisited. This sets a website up with a solid “platform” that can then be further optimized at a steady, manageable rate on a month-to-month basis from then on.

This is not to say that businesses should expect SEO to be “cheap.” Rather, it’s a long-term investment that over time will deliver results and cost a business less to run profitably than other channels.

Set yourself up for future success

That’s really what a good SEO strategy will do for a business. Google search is not going anywhere. At least, not for the next 5 or 10 years. While the bid prices continually fluctuate on ad platforms (often rising) and ads can be canceled inexplicably without reason, there is no “pay to play” with Google search; if your product or offering is strong enough, your website will appear for the queries people are searching for with the help of a steady investment in SEO.

Invest in first party data

First party data is a buzzword this year, and rightly so. It’s becoming harder and harder for marketers to track user journeys, and this ultimately has meant a downturn in overall revenues. Facebook recently blamed Apple for its monumental revenue loss when it came to ads, due to Apple’s recently instated privacy warning.

So, with data increasingly hard to come by, having a customer, or prospective client’s, email address makes your marketing efforts much more simplified as you have a (rare) direct line to them. Whether you are selling, or simply maintaining your relationship with them, email marketing is becoming the most important channel for you to get your message across clearly, without risk of it being misinterpreted or fogged in any way.

Evaluate if you need social media

A final point: it’s not vital to plaster your brand over every single social media platform and hope you can turn some results and win some customers. Most brands can do with culling social media platforms, as it’s very unlikely your niche will have an engaged audience across every single one. Use your data, see what’s working, and adapt.

Cutting platforms is cutting costs to run those platforms, whether time or money. Get leaner in these tougher times.