TLDR: Diesel just hit a record $6+ a gallon, freight and input costs are climbing, and consumer disposable income is getting squeezed. History shows exactly what happens next, businesses panic and cut marketing first, and the ones who do usually don’t make it. I watched this play out firsthand during the Great Recession. The dealers who protect their visibility now are the ones who come out stronger.
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Diesel just hit a record $6.05 a gallon nationally this month, the highest price ever recorded in this country, driven largely by the disruption at the Strait of Hormuz. That’s not a small, isolated number. Diesel is the fuel that moves nearly everything: freight, trucking, construction, agriculture. When it spikes like this, the cost ripples through the entire economy and eventually lands in consumers’ wallets, whether that’s higher prices at the grocery store or less room left over for big discretionary purchases.
I’m not going to pretend I know exactly where this ends up. I don’t. Maybe everything will normalize in a few months… who knows…. let’s pray!
But I have watched this pattern before, and I think it’s worth talking about honestly, because what happens next is largely a choice, not an inevitability.
What This Means for Hot Tub and Pool Buyers
When disposable income tightens, high-ticket personal wellness purchases like hot tubs, swim spas, saunas, are usually among the first things people hesitate on. Two things tend to happen.
- Fewer people are willing to make the purchase at all (talking about this in the post today).
- And among the people still willing, the sales cycle stretches out longer: more research, more comparison shopping, more time before they pull the trigger.
That doesn’t mean buyers disappear. There will always be a segment of people with high disposable income who keep buying regardless of what’s happening with diesel prices or freight costs. What it means is the pool of ready buyers gets smaller and more competitive to capture. And sadly, every one of them matters more than they did a year ago.
What I Saw in 2008
I graduated in 2008 and walked straight into the workforce during the Great Recession. My first job out of college was at an agency called SEO.com. I had the privilege of getting a front-row seat to watching businesses across dozens of industries make the same decision, over and over, as the economy tightened.
They cut their SEO budgets.
Some scaled them back. A lot of them eliminated them entirely. It felt like the responsible move at the time: protect cash, cut anything that wasn’t an immediate, obvious necessity, and marketing was almost always first on that list.
Here’s what actually happened.
A meaningful number of those businesses didn’t make it… they went out of business, never to come back. And the ones that did survive weren’t always the ones with the deepest pockets; they were often the ones who kept their marketing spend flat, or in some cases even increased it, while their competitors went quiet. When the market started to recover, those businesses weren’t starting from zero. They were still visible, still ranking, still capturing the customers who were out there looking, while their competitors had spent the downturn invisible and were now trying to claw their way back from nothing.
We’ve watched this pattern repeat throughout time. It’s not a theory. It’s something I watched happen in real time, and it’s exactly the instinct I’m seeing start to show up again right now as I’m talking to new prospects each day. They are scared and don’t know what to do. This might be you too.
The Instinct Dealers Have Right Now
When freight costs climb, and consumers start pulling back, the reflex in almost every dealership is the same. Tighten the belt. Cut the marketing retainer. Pause the ad spend. It feels like a direct, controllable way to protect the bottom line when everything else feels out of your hands.
I had this exact conversation with a potential client this morning. Hence the post…
I have empathy for you and understand the instinct completely. But it’s the same mistake I watched play out in 2008, just with a different trigger. Back then it was a housing collapse. Right now it’s diesel prices and freight costs squeezing margins across the board. The mechanism is different. The response dealers reach for is identical, and it’s the wrong one.
Why This Is Exactly Backwards
Cutting visibility during a period when fewer buyers are actively in market doesn’t protect a dealership; it hands the buyers who are still out there directly to whichever competitor kept showing up. This is really the root of the problem right here.
If there are fewer people ready to buy a hot tub or a swim spa right now, the dealership that stays visible in search, in the map pack, in their existing customer’s inbox, is the one who captures them. The dealership that goes quiet simply isn’t part of the conversation anymore.
This is the part that’s hard to sit with. Yes, total customer volume may dip during a period like this. That’s a real possibility, and I’m not going to pretend otherwise. But the businesses I watched come out of 2008 stronger weren’t the ones who avoided a slowdown entirely. They were the ones who stayed visible enough to capture the buyers who were still there, built real relationships with them, and found ways to grow revenue per customer even while overall volume was down.
Winning might not look like 25% to the bottom line. It might be 0-1% to the bottom line, and that’s okay for a period of time.
The Mindset Shift That Actually Matters
It’s scary to keep spending on marketing while competitors are visibly pulling back. I know. I market my business and invest a lot of money every month as well. It feels like the safe move is to match them.
My take is exactly the opposite.
If the number of ready buyers shrinks, each one becomes more valuable, not less. That means capturing them matters more, building a real relationship matters more, and increasing customer lifetime value through service plans, accessories, and follow-up care matters more too. That’s exactly the kind of revenue that helps a dealership weather a tighter period instead of just hoping to survive it.
What This Looks Like in Practice
Please don’t get me wrong, this doesn’t necessarily mean spending more. It means being deliberate about what gets protected first. Organic visibility, paid search that’s actually converting, a Google Business Profile that’s active and well-maintained, email and SMS to the customer base already built – these are the channels capturing buyers who are actively looking right now.
Cutting these first is cutting off the exact demand that still exists.
At the same time, this is a good moment to lean harder into the customers a dealership already has. Retention, service upsells, and referrals from happy past buyers cost far less to generate than new customer acquisition, and they become even more valuable when new buyer volume is under pressure.
Tight Periods Concentrate Buyers, They Don’t Eliminate Them
I’ve seen this story before, and I know how it ends for the businesses that go quiet. The dealerships still visible when a buyer is finally ready to act are the ones who get the sale. The ones who pulled back and hoped to ride it out quietly are the ones who get skipped entirely, and often struggle to recover even once conditions improve. This isn’t a prediction I’m making from theory. It’s something I watched happen firsthand, and I don’t want to watch this industry make the same mistake twice.
FAQs
Should I cut my marketing budget during an economic downturn?
History suggests it’s usually the wrong move. Businesses that maintained or increased marketing spend during past downturns, including the Great Recession, generally came out stronger than competitors who cut back, since they remained visible to the buyers who were still in market.
Why are diesel and freight prices affecting hot tub and pool dealers?
Rising diesel and freight costs ripple through the broader economy, increasing costs for goods and services and reducing consumer disposable income, which directly affects willingness to make large discretionary purchases like hot tubs, swim spas, and saunas.
What happened to businesses that cut SEO budgets during the Great Recession?
Many businesses that eliminated or significantly cut their SEO investment during that period struggled or closed entirely. Businesses that maintained consistent marketing investment generally retained more visibility and market share once conditions improved.
How can a dealership grow revenue with fewer buyers in market?
Focus on capturing the buyers who remain, building stronger relationships with them, and increasing customer lifetime value through service plans, accessories, and follow-up communication rather than relying solely on new customer volume.
What marketing channels matter most when budgets are tight?
Prioritize channels already driving qualified visibility and leads, organic search, converting paid search campaigns, an active Google Business Profile, and email or SMS outreach to the existing customer base, rather than cutting them as a cost-saving measure.
Greg is the founder and CEO of Stryde and a seasoned digital marketer who has worked with thousands of businesses, large and small, to generate more revenue via online marketing strategy and execution. Greg has written hundreds of blog posts as well as spoken at many events about online marketing strategy. You can follow Greg on Twitter and connect with him on LinkedIn.
