"Nano-niche" marketing—targeting very small but engaged groups of consumers—is one way to weather a recession. How can you do nano-marketing if your brand is designed to be sold to a wide audience? It's more work for the marketing team but often far less investment in media buys. So, you may spend a bit more on salary, but a lot less on ads. That’s because you're relying on content, blogs, search optimization, and reaching out to extremely small (but ripe for the plucking) lists and media outlets.