Are you sick of hearing about the recession? Do you wish you could beat the odds and grow your revenue while others struggle to stay in business? Good news — you can! It’s an “adapt or die” market, but if you adapt you can still thrive.

Here are five things you can do to increase your revenue despite a slow economy.

1. Increase or improve your social media engagement. — Word of mouth is always important, but especially during a recession. People have less money to spend. That makes trusted recommendations more important. Social media gives you a direct line to customers and those they trust. Try new social media tools or spend more time in your existing networks. Don’t just broadcast. Talk to people. Get to know customers and colleagues. The more they trust you, the more likely they’ll spread the word.
2. Put more focus on SEO. — Search engine optimization can help you maintain visibility with a targeted audience — people searching for businesses like yours. If you can’t afford expensive marketing campaigns to find new customers, focusing on SEO can be a cost effective way to help prospects find you instead.
3. Diversify your income streams. — The Web makes it easy to create new income streams. Launch an affiliate program to build a commission-based sales force. Launch an email newsletter and accept advertisements. Or sell downloadable products (like software) to sell unlimited copies without the costs of physical manufacturing.
4. Broaden your horizons. – Businesses can sometimes ride out a bad economic swing by changing geographic targets. If the economy is suffering where you are, target clients or customers in another part of the country (or around the world). If you can’t broaden your geographic reach, target new customer groups. For example, if you sell educational products to teachers, target parents as well.
5. Increase authority and lead generation with freebies. — Offer free product samples, online tools, e-books, reports, white papers, apps, or anything relevant to your business. Freebies are lead-generating machines and natural linkbait (helping your SEO efforts). And people love to spread the word about the great freebies they find. Give them a reason to spread the word about you.

Do you have other marketing tips for growing revenue during a recession? How is your business faring? Help other readers out by sharing your tips and stories in the comments below.