A colleague recently forwarded me an email from a brand specialist about Black Friday sales and asked for my thoughts.
The author’s perspective was clear: she doesn’t offer discounts for her own business, partly to respect customers who paid full price, partly because her pricing is already structured to be accessible, and partly because frequent discounting can erode brand equity.
It got me thinking. Sales can be both incredibly valuable and potentially risky; it’s all about context, strategy, and intent.
We live in a region built on bold ideas and even bolder brands with shopfronts that stop you in your tracks, Instagram feeds that make you double tap, and packaging that makes people say “I need that.”
But good design isn’t just about aesthetics. For businesses on the Coast, it’s a powerful tool to build trust, create recognition, and convert attention into action. As a strategic brand and graphic design agency on the Gold Coast, we know just how much good design can do. Here’s why it should be part of your business growth plan from day one.
The Gold Coast isn’t just a postcard destination anymore, it’s one of Australia’s fastest-growing regions for small business. With more people relocating for the lifestyle, competition has hit an all-time high. From boutique wellness brands to booming property services, it’s a vibrant (and crowded) market.
But while the growth is exciting, it also brings challenges. Standing out is harder. Customer expectations are higher. And the digital world? Changing faster than ever.
As a local Gold Coast marketing agency, we’ve had a front-row seat to the shifts happening across service-based industries, hospitality, property, and health. Whether you’re just starting out or trying to level up, here are the top 7 marketing hurdles we’re seeing in 2025 and how to move past them.
Lemon Tree started as a small marketing agency with a big vision: to help local businesses grow, connect, and thrive in an ever-changing digital landscape. Fast forward to today, and we’re proud to have grown alongside the Gold Coast community, adapting to new challenges, emerging trends, and shifting consumer behaviours. As we prepare to launch our refreshed brand identity and shiny new website, it felt like the perfect time to reflect on what it takes to stay relevant after more than a decade in business.
As the business landscape shifts and consumer priorities change, it becomes crucial to adapt your approach to effectively connect with your audience and maintain a strong brand presence.
In this blog, we’ll explore various strategies that can help you market with impact during a recession and position your business for success, both now and in the future.
Understanding your customers
Before throwing all your resources at the wall, think about how you might rejig your strategy and messaging to ensure it’s both sensitive to the current situation and relevant to your audience.
What are they struggling with, or concerned about? What’s happening in their lives right now? Do some digging and aim to create messaging that shows you understand – and more importantly, that you care.
But beware – make sure you’re truly authentic about it; consumers are smart creatures and will spot a brand taking advantage of the situation from a mile away.
Present a solution with paid search campaigns
Paid search can be highly effective during an economic downturn, when people are actively searching for products and services that provide value for money. By strategically targeting relevant keywords and crafting compelling ad copy, you can position your business as exactly the solution they’re looking for.
Extend your reach with social media advertising
Social media platforms continue to be a powerful marketing tool, even during a recession. With people spending more time online, leveraging social media ads can help you reach a wider audience and engage with more potential customers.
Platforms like Facebook, Instagram, TikTok & LinkedIn offer sophisticated targeting options, allowing you to connect with your ideal customers with the right message, at the right time.
Connect and engage with organic social media content
While paid advertising is a must for most, never overlook the power of organic!
Think about creating compelling and shareable content that aligns with your brand values and resonates with your target audience. Engage in meaningful conversations, respond to comments, and actively listen to your audience’s feedback.
Another great approach is to look for ways to entertain your audience. The current economic climate is stressful for so many, so finding ways to make people laugh might be just what the doctor ordered.
And as a bonus, continuing to engage your audience will keep your brand top of mind for when they are ready to purchase again (if they’re not already).
Give your brand some love
Maintaining a strong brand presence is critical at all times – not just during times of crisis.
People are more likely to stick with brands they know and trust, especially when times are tough, so make sure you’re nurturing your brand and ensuring you remain relevant during the changing landscape.
Focus on showcasing your authentic brand values, personality, and commitment to customer satisfaction to help stand out from the competition.
Be loyal to your loyal customers
Your existing customers are a valuable asset. Period.
Instead of focusing on growing your customer base, prioritise nurturing and retaining your loyal customers. Offer exclusive deals, personalised discounts, or loyalty programs to show your appreciation and keep them coming back for more.
Leverage personalised emails
Even now, email marketing remains one of the most cost-effective and highly targeted marketing tools in your arsenal. Use your email list to communicate directly with your audience, offering them valuable insights, special promotions, or helpful resources.
Personalise your email content by using audience segmentation to make each recipient feel seen and heard.
Work on your SEO
In uncertain times, consumers are more likely to research their purchase decisions thoroughly so mastering your SEO is key to success in the fight for Google’s coveted top spot.
Invest time and effort in optimising your website’s structure, metadata, and content to increase organic visibility and attract more qualified traffic.
While economic downturns can be challenging for any business, they also present very real opportunities for those willing to invest in marketing. By maintaining or growing your marketing spend, you can navigate economic uncertainty with confidence and even come out stronger on the other side.
Remember, the power of marketing can make all the difference between surviving and thriving in challenging times.
In times of economic uncertainty, it’s only natural to think about tightening the financial belt – and marketing budgets are often one of the first to hit the chopping block. Yet, this can actually be a major missed opportunity.
In fact, history has shown that maintaining or even *boosting* marketing spend during an economic downturn often means remaining more profitable in the short term, and expediting growth once the economy recovers.
With that in mind, we wanted to explore the power of marketing during a potential recession and why it is absolutely essential to continue investing in your marketing efforts.
Money’s tight! Why focus on marketing?
Leverage lower advertising costs
One of the key advantages of marketing during an economic downturn is that advertising costs tend to drop. This means reaching your audience at a lower cost-per-click or cost-per-impression. By taking advantage of reduced ad costs, you can stretch your marketing budget further and achieve a higher return on investment. Score!
Secure a greater share of voice
During a recession, many businesses are quick to drop their marketing spend or pull out altogether. This creates a unique opportunity for those in-the-know to slide in with powerful marketing messaging.
With less competition in the advertising space, you’ll likely secure a greater share of voice and ultimately capture more attention. And once you’ve got it? You can leverage this attention long into the future by building and nurturing relationships, and (if you get it right) ultimately achieve greater brand loyalty and advocacy.
Maintain momentum – vvvroom!
Keeping your advertising efforts consistent means you’ll avoid losing momentum in the market. When the economy begins to recover, having an established presence and ongoing campaigns already set up will see you better positioned to take advantage of the upswing.
On the flip side? It can be more challenging, time-consuming and costly to rebuild market share from scratch if you’ve completely paused your ad campaigns – so avoid it if at all possible.
Alright, alright – I’m convinced!
So where should I focus my marketing resources?
Learn more about where to invest your time and resources to create the biggest impact on part two of this blog series, marketing with impact during a recession.
If there’s one not-so-secret ingredient to building a powerhouse brand, it’s having a purpose. Something that fires you up, drives your business forward; the reason your brand exists. Without one, and if your sole “purpose” is to make money, you’ll likely struggle to get any real consumer buy-in.
There are loads of brands in various different industries that continue to impress us with their dedication to a purpose. Some brands have well and truly stood the test of time, and others are newer kids on the block, pioneering the way forward (think Who Gives a Crap, Koala, and Frank Green). And the one thing they all have in common?
The observation is that the brands people admire most are built on underpinning ideals that guide brand and company activity. This idea of a brand’s real purpose has been proven to influence business success, particularly in the long term.
The idea is that the ‘ideal’ is the brand’s best self. The Big IdeaLTM, then, is a statement that defines your brand’s point of view, expressing a higher purpose than making money. But it’s the strength and consistent execution of that purpose that gets people to buy in.
Let’s look at the framework for developing your brand’s purpose and examples.
Developing your brand’s purpose
Firstly, look inward. List what makes, or could make your brand great. What do you intrinsically value or stand for? What makes you unique from competitors?
You’ll then need to refine your list, into its simplest form, as a short sentence that defines your brand’s best self.
In our opinion, Dove is one of the frontrunners when it comes to embodying their purpose. Let’s look at how they’ve defined their best self.
For Dove, the brand’s best self is, ‘a gentle alternative to soap that delivers real care’.
Once you’ve determined your brand’s best self, the next step is to identify a wrong in the world that your brand can help make right. List all of the pain points within your industry.
For Dove, they looked to their biggest consumer – women. They uncovered the nasty pressures of advertising toward women, often with the intention to make them feel insecure about themselves enough to buy what it is they need to ‘fix’ it.
So, Dove defined the wrong they set out to right, ‘beauty anxiety in an age of Photoshop’.
Once you’ve defined your brand’s best self and the cultural tension your brand hopes to correct, combine the two, and, voila, you’ve developed your brand purpose. A deeply held conviction on how the world (or some particular part of it) should be, which then forms the foundation of your mission as a brand.
For Dove, ‘the world would be a better place if women were allowed to feel better about their bodies’.
Notice there is no mention of soap or any product, for that matter. This is because the brand strives for a much higher purpose than just the capabilities of its products. Powerful, right?
Now let’s see that brand purpose in action.
How to use a brand purpose
It’s been statistically proven that having a solid brand purpose is linked to greater brand consideration, positive opinions, and salience, which are then associated with business profitability and success. In simple terms, stick to your promise, and your brand will be rewarded.
In saying that, a strong brand purpose doesn’t eventuate in 10 minutes. It’s an exercise that should be well thought out and executed consistently, throughout everything you do, to give your brand the best shot at long-term success.
Your brand purpose should be built on real cultural truths that truly matter to you and to your audience. It should be emotional rather than functional, supported by in-depth research, and brought to life with texture and dimension in a well-executed brand strategy and identity.
It should feel authentic and aspirational – but achievable – and it should be referred to at every single decision-making stage in your company’s future.
Ready to build a brand for the future? Let’s chat.
It’s no surprise that Google recently announced the sunset date for its widely used Universal Analytics (UA) platform.
The platform, which was originally launched in 2005, was recently superseded by Google Analytics 4 or commonly referred to as GA4. The new tracking and analytics program is an exciting new solution for businesses and marketers that brings with it more in-depth data and AI-powered analytics and modelling.
With the 1st of July 2023 marked as the end for Universal Analytics, now is the time to get set up on GA4 to ensure you’re able to run year on year data comparisons.
Another important reason for setting up sooner rather than later is allowing Google’s machine learning time to plugin and start building your data models.
What’s the difference between Universal Analytics and GA4?
Besides the visual differences, GA4 was completely rebuilt by Google on new architecture.
Google Analytics was originally built around the concept of sessions, which is essentially looking at a series of page views by a user. GA4, on the other hand, is built around the concept of events; that is, everything from pageviews to clicks, to form submissions, to checkouts, through to any custom event you define.
This significant change allows GA4 to collect a lot more data, give you more insights into what people are doing on your website or app, and have the ability to track just about anything online – not just web traffic.
What’s the benefit to your business?
GA4 is built for the future. It has a strong focus on data privacy and utilises intelligent, machine learning to unearth insights and provide data-driven attribution modelling (the ability to assign credit to a specific touchpoint in the customer journey).
Whether you’re an ecommerce or service business, GA4 delivers a host of benefits that will help you measure your often complex, multi-platform, multi-device customer journey. The platform will also provide more clarity on your marketing activities with data-driven attribution. GA4 assigns attribution credit to more than just the last click, this means you can understand how your marketing activities collectively influence your customer’s journey to conversion.
GA4 will also give you access to Google’s crystal ball. Predictive Metrics uses AI to understand and predict user behaviour across purchases and event metrics.
Preparing for Google Analytics 4
Now’s the time to start planning your transition to GA4.
Enlisting the help of a specialist to migrate your analytics to GA4 can ensure valuable data is not lost in the process.
The changes in data collection between Universal Analytics and GA4 will require many changes to be implemented and tested. This is particularly important as some standard metrics in UA don’t come as standard in GA4.
If your business uses multi-channel or 3rd party platforms, CRMs, dashboards or reporting interfaces, they will all need to be adjusted to the new GA4 view. That’s not to forget any set up in Tag Manager will need to be updated.
How Lemon Tree can help you migrate to GA4
Lemon Tree is ready to help you migrate your tracking and analytics and can look after your entire GA4 migration process as part of a wider digital partnership.
If you’re ready to take the leap and go beyond your basic Universal Analytics, setup we can help! Reach out to our team today.
When partnering with an agency, you come to the table expecting honesty, transparency, and above all, that they’ll have your best interests at heart. Unfortunately, this isn’t always the case.
From questionable practices to guaranteeing the unforeseeable, there are a few common red flags to look out for when deciding on (and working with) an agency. We’ve laid them out below to help you make the most informed decision about whether or not to continue with an agency.
Exclusive partnerships
We’ve heard some pretty wild stories about agencies telling prospective clients what they want to hear, and this one definitely takes the cake. If an agency tells you that they have exclusive partnerships with platforms like Facebook and Google, allowing them to get ahead of any changes before anyone else, this simply isn’t true. While most agencies have certifications with these platforms, this doesn’t give them access to any information that isn’t already available to everyone else.
‘Guaranteed’ results
If you’re considering an agency and they guarantee a certain number of leads or specific return on investment, you should take this with a grain of salt. While we can definitely learn from previous experience and aim to replicate the success of previous campaigns, there is no way to guarantee that the outcome will be the same. If there were, everyone would be doing it.
Each account is different, with different audiences, creative, messaging and the list goes on. Digital marketing is an ongoing evolution in which we’re constantly learning and optimising – but there’s no magic formula that can guarantee results.
Social ads set up under agency Business Manager, not your own
As a Facebook advertiser, it is your right to own and retain all data collected through advertising on the platform. However, this can only be achieved if you’re advertising through your own Business Manager. If you find that your agency is advertising for you through their account, this means that they essentially own your data – so if you decide to leave them, you’ll also be leaving behind every insight your advertising efforts have brought along the way.
Paying advertising costs to the agency, not the platform
If your agency requests that you pay your advertising budget to them, and not directly to the platform you’re advertising with, consider this a red flag. As an agency, it makes no difference to the process or performance if a client pays their ad spend directly to the channel. So if you’re being asked to direct funds to the agency, they’re likely taking a cut for themselves rather than utilising the full budget for your advertising costs.
Availability of specialists
Is it difficult for you to get in touch with the individual specialists working behind the scenes on your account? If this is the case, there’s a good chance your agency is actually outsourcing parts of your account to either domestic or offshore contractors. As a client, you should expect complete clarity over who is working for you and have the opportunity to connect with each of them (not just your Account Manager) if and when you want to learn more about how things are going.
Not considering brand as part of your digital approach
How much does your agency really know about your brand and how you’re different from everyone else out there? Even if you’re working with a ‘digital only’ agency, taking the time to really understand your brand is the key to ensuring a cohesive digital experience that builds on your brand equity and optimises your chance of success. If you approach an agency and they’re ready to ‘hit go’ without digging into who you are and what you do, consider whether they really have the tools needed to maximise results for your business.
