What will your digital marketing look like in 12 months time? How can you justify marketing budgets that suddenly looks discretionary, when costs are being cut elsewhere to prepare for a lengthy downturn?

Uncertainty and change look like the only constants on the immediate horizon. But through the gloom there are a few flickering lights that suggest a safe route through the choppy waters; perhaps even telling us how things will look in the safe harbour of an upturn. So here are four trends to watch in the first digital recession.

Generosity

OK, it’s seems odd to talk about generosity when everyone feels they’ve got less to give, but companies are already finding that generosity pays in a recession. One of the biggest new trends in recent months is online vouchers. Whether received in round robin emails or collected on sites such as MyVoucherCodes.co.uk or VoucherCodes.com, online vouchers have become the starting point for the prudent consumer, rather than just a nice bonus.

Generosity is all about showing some empathy with your customers. It’s saying that you know times are tough and you’re willing to meet them halfway if they spend with you.

How can you show some generosity to your customers? What can you share to show that you care?

Perkonomics

Related to generosity but set to become a powerful trend in its own right, perkonomics is about giving your customers novel forms of status or convenience. It’s not about discounts. It’s the intangibles that set you apart from the competition and again shows that you empathise.

How about some examples? Well, online supermarket Ocado now offers members priority access to delivery slots around the busy Christmas period. A simple perk that costs Ocado nothing but, when combined with an old-school limited period discount, encourages customers to commit to the upmarket e-tailer for the year rather than be tempted by the more recession-friendly Tesco.com.

Mobile company O2 also gives good perk. Their Blue Room website gives customers the VIP treatment at music events. In another realm, Westminster City Council offers free parking and charging bays to drivers of electric cars.

What can you give your customers that no-one else can? Who could you join forces with to make your customers’ lives that bit better?

Collective buying power

One Friday afternoon, in Guangzhou, China, 500 strangers arrived en masse at an electrical store. They left several hours later having secured 10%-30% discounts on TVs, cameras and DVD players. On the other side of the world, residents of Chicago are teaming up daily to secure group discounts on everything from sushi to tennis lessons. It’s called collective buying power. Not a new concept, but the social world of Web 2.0 is pushing it into new markets.

Now a word of warning: we’ve been here before during the dot.com crash of 2001. Perhaps the most well known example was LetsBuyIt.com, which burned through millions of pounds of investors’ money before crashing horribly when it finally floated. But there’s reason to believe things will be different this time (LetsBuyIt.com think so; new owners are planning a summer re-launch).

Why could it be different this time? First, more people are on the web more of the time than in 2001. Second, social media such as Facebook and Twitter enable informal groups to form quickly. And, of course, we’re into a downturn so getting money off any way you can becomes even more attractive.

How would your company respond when faced with collective buying power? How could you encourage this behaviour to increase sales?

Feedback 3.0

Consumer review sites are everywhere now, with Trip Advisor and Qype two of the best Feedback 2.0 examples. But so far brands and companies have, by and large, watched mute from the sidelines. Expect this to change over the next 12 months as brands open up more direct, informal channels between themselves and consumers.

The leader in this area is Dell. The centre of their effort is Dell Community, featuring the innovative Ideas Storm where Dell customers can suggest and vote on ideas for improving Dell’s products and services. Elsewhere on the web Dell encourage individual members of staff to get active on Facebook, Twitter and Flickr, so they can have conversations with their tech-savvy customers.

Dedicated Feedback 3.0 sites and services are springing up too, providing a forum for business owners to respond to customers. New boys Get Satisfaction, Bazaarvoice.com and UserVoice (as used tentatively by the UK Government) are early leaders, with more established companies like Salesforce getting in on the act too. Trip Advisor is making the leap from 2.0 to 3.0 by providing a dedicated feature for management feedback to reviews.

What would you say to an unhappy customer if they were in the room with you? What would your company look like if it was built by your customers?

Conclusion

A new economic climate has brought uncertainty, and digital marketing is well suited to uncertain times: it is more measurable, and new campaigns can be produced, rolled out and – if successful – scaled up more quickly than through non-digital channels. So, where possible, it’s time to experiment in your marketing; and the four trends outlined above suggest where the fertile ground might lie.