People are freaking out about the economy.

And in some ways, rightly so - we are entering a bear market.

DTC was really built in a crazy bull run the last 10 years.

So if iOS 14.5 was tough, this could be harder.

I am not writing this to scare you, but my goal is to be honest with the realities of marketing for your business.

Let's not pretend everything is good when most stocks have dropped on average 60% in the last few months.

I too have only built a business during a bull market.

Based on what I know about content creation and business, here are some tips and things I am thinking about for brands as they prepare for an unknown bear market.

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1. Focus your energy and resources

Now is the time to decide which platform will be your main focus.

You probably will want to keep more cash on hand as a business, so spending will be lighter.

You still need to invest in content and marketing, but you need to focus on where you allocate your resources.

This is not the time to try and be everywhere at all times.You might have a leaner team, so in order to not burn out your team members or agency partners, you want to have clarity of where you want to focus on content creation as a brand.

2. Patience and long-term mindset

In recent years, you have probably seen brands printing money and becoming huge in a short amount of time.

Not to say that won't happen, you need to adjust your expectations.

Consumers have taken a massive hit in retirement and savings, they will become more cautious in buying.

Because of that, families will cut extra spending, or the sales cycle will be longer, which will lead to more expensive acquisition costs.

In the same way, you have to be patient with the channels you are publishing content to and building an audience.

Your content should still sell, but just be patient with what you create because the conversions might slow down.

3. Real People Buy Your Products

Data is cool to help make decisions, but don't forget that those are humans, not numbers.

The humans who are your customers, are also experiencing this bear market and they too are emotional beings.

Not to get political or even go in-depth about personal finances, but let's just say, many Americans are leveraged with debt and other financial situations, so a bear market can scare them or even take them out financially.

Most people reading this newsletter are selling nice-to-have products, not necessary products.

If you sell a nice-to-have product, be mindful as you try to sell your product to someone that there is a good chance there is fear about money right now.

Empathy is your best friend in a bear market.

4. Quality Over Quantity

This is a time to be resourceful with your content creation.

Learning how to repurpose content will be imperative since production can get expensive.

What I have started to suggest to clients is to pay for production where we shoot a ton of content, and then edit out videos, graphics, and images over the course of a few months.

Instead of paying for a new production and planning each month, you consolidate the costs and work more on a quarterly basis.

You are still getting high-quality assets, but you can cut costs with efficiences.

Spending your money wisely is important in a bear market, so be very careful who your creative partners are.

Cheap might sound good, because you save money, but cheap content that doesn't work is not helpful.Cheap can also mean that you spend energy managing the creative partner more, but that is a loss if your team is lean and time is not in abundance.

Think about investing more in content to have a better experience and a more positive ROI in the long term.

Having a partner that can execute content creation over a few months can be powerful for you as a brand, and your CFO will thank you later!

In next week's newsletter, we will go more in-depth on how to repurpose your assets, so if you have any questions, reply here so we can have them answered in next week's newsletter.