It’s an uncomfortable conversation we’ve been having a lot lately: when input costs spike, marketing is usually one of the first line items farmers and rural businesses reach for the red pen on.
We get it. When diesel is changing price three times a week, when urea has climbed to $1,075/tonne and Australian growers are paying north of A$1,500, and when ag aviators are quietly raising their per-hour fees to cover fuel, every dollar of discretionary spend gets a second look.
But here’s the thing we’ve learned watching businesses ride out previous downturns: the operations that come out the other side strongest are almost always the ones that kept showing up during the rough patch. Not the ones that went biggest. Not the ones that disappeared. The ones that stayed visible, stayed credible, and stayed in front of the right people while their competitors went quiet.
If you’re a rural business looking at your marketing budget right now, our honest advice isn’t to spend more — it’s to spend smarter. That looks like:
Cut the vanity metrics, double down on the conversion ones. Brand awareness is great, but in a tight year you want every dollar tied to a measurable outcome.
Talk to your existing customers more, not less. Repeat business is cheaper than new business, and the people who already trust you are the ones most likely to refer.
Be honest about the conditions in your content. Rural audiences can smell a tone-deaf marketing message a mile away. Lean into the reality, don’t paper over it.
The businesses we work with who’ve ridden out worse than this — droughts, floods, dairy payout collapses — all say the same thing afterwards. Staying in front of customers when it was hard is what made the difference when things turned.
If you want a no-pressure conversation about how to make a tight marketing budget work harder, that’s exactly what we’re here for.
Flick Media is a Hamilton-based digital marketing agency offering SEO, Google Ads, content creation, and website development for New Zealand businesses.