Go-To-Market Strategy During a Recession: a VC’s Perspective
What will you learn?
What does this economic downturn mean for businesses?
How to pivot marketing during a recession
How to make sure your marketing and sales understand each other and collaborate effectively on revenue goals
Speakers
Charles Beeler
General Partner of Rally Ventures
Key Points
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How would you describe the current market environment?
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How has the upcoming recession affected the current go-to-market process?
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What are the biggest mistakes marketing should avoid right now?
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How can marketing leaders align with the board?
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How should you approach long-term strategic initiatives in a downturn?
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What are the deadliest signs that your marketing and sales are misaligned?
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How do you know if your marketing is on the right track?
Transcript
It’s a difficult market. I mean we've known since the public market started to drop over a year ago that we were going to head towards this. It's finally starting to hit companies in a meaningful way.
Enterprises are starting to cut their budgets. Obviously, marketing is an area that when you get into a downturn people start to look at. Because they see it as a soft area of spend. And we'll talk more about it in terms of how you can prove that the value of what I'm doing is really important even in the downturn.
On the venture side what we're seeing (and this has been true I've been through this is the third major cycle of 2000 and 2017-2008) there's still the capitulation honestly is yet to come. So we're seeing venture firms in the industry start to wake up to reality. But over the last few years, there was a huge bubble in terms of valuations and how things got marked up. And it's really hard to work through that on the downslope. So I think in 2023, it's going to be difficult for a lot of companies.
Key takeaways
In a recession, marketing budgets are often the first to be cut, so it's crucial to prove the value of marketing efforts even during economic downturns.
Marketing leaders should critically evaluate all marketing expenditures, eliminate non-essential spending, and reallocate resources to initiatives that align with business goals and can be measured analytically.
Alignment between marketing and sales teams is crucial, with a focus on generating quality leads and providing sales teams with the necessary support and resources to close deals successfully.
Long-term strategic initiatives should be justified with a clear understanding of their long-term impact, while being mindful of short-term budget constraints.