How Election Years Impact Small Businesses

So, guys, it’s been a chaotic year. And it’ll probably only get crazier as we move towards November. Election years are a wild time for everyone, regardless of whether you’re a grandma, a doctor, a taxi driver, or a small business owner. Life can feel more unsettled and stressful than usual with all the political noise – elections have a tendency to make us all feel a little unsteady, even in the best years.

You may have noticed an increase in political content… everywhere. There are campaign ads on social media, television, radio, billboards, and literally anywhere else you can put an ad. It’s pretty much all the mainstream news sources are talking about. Tons of people on Instagram, Facebook, X (formerly known as Twitter), Threads, and every other social media app have plenty of “expert” opinions to offer on every candidate and every policy, and that seems to be most of what they’re posting. We got a little reprieve during the Olympics in August, and maybe football season will offer a decent distraction for some, but for the most part, there’s just… a lot of political babble. It’s like a static buzz constantly in the background of our lives. And here’s the thing: if you find it hard to break through the static with your marketing, so does everyone else, including your target audience.

Election years make it really tough for small businesses to market. There’s so much more noise in people’s lives and on social media that it’s way more difficult to break through and get people to notice your awesome service offers or super cool products. So what should we underdogs do?

You’ve got two options: pull back or double down.

Pulling Back on Your Marketing

Paid ads will be more costly from now through at least November, if not all the way to the end of the year, and organic marketing will continue to be a battle of standing out from the noise.

So, you can invest less time and money in advertising and marketing for now to focus on your current clients, networking, and internal projects, and hit the ground running with a great marketing campaign in the new year.

Whatever clients or customers you happen to attract in the interim are a happy result of all your hard work from earlier this year. It’s a good way to save some money (and great ideas) for a time when it’ll be more effective, and it frees you up a little bit to enjoy the fall and the holidays without stressing about how ads are performing or if your marketing strategy needs to be adjusted.

If you choose to go this route, I highly recommend not stopping all of your marketing efforts completely! You want to continue to be active on your marketing channels, just maybe put a little less time and effort into it. This will set you up well for when you amplify your marketing in the new year.

Doubling Down on Your Marketing

This can actually be done in two ways:

One option: You can put in the extra effort of implementing a fantastic marketing campaign that’s unique and interesting enough to draw people’s attention away from the rest of the noise. Many times, the best-performing content in this time frame is one that provides joy and a reprieve from the election and political content seen everywhere.

Let this be a time to test new content ideas (and then repurpose them in the new year), focus on building community with your audiences, and adding some fun and creative content into the mix of your marketing.

Second Option: Create a marketing and advertising strategy that is noticeable and well-funded enough to compete with the normal big corporations and the political campaigns that are also vying for your target audience’s attention. I’m not gonna lie, this can take a lot from you (in both time and money), and even then it may not be enough to make a significant difference in your bottom line.

That doesn’t mean it’s a “bad” idea, but it’s certainly one to only implement if you have the resources and data to back up this approach. If you take this route, look into some of the other companies that have done this in past election years to see how they went about it (and how well it performed).

Final Thoughts

Regardless of which option you pick, don’t be too stressed if you notice your sales take a dip the closer we get to the election– that’s normal for most industries. You aren’t doing something terribly wrong, you don’t need to make a sudden, dramatic shift in all your strategies and offers, it’s just how election years impact small businesses. After January, things should shift back towards normalcy.

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