There is no way to ignore the crisis that the global COVID-19 pandemic has wreaked on the business landscape. All plans for 2020 and beyond have been completely turned upside down as companies struggle to survive, adapt, and overcome a national lockdown. Of course, there is some diversity within the landscape. Whole industries, such as hospitality, lie mothballed, while others have never been busier. Still others are using innovation to pivot their offer and adhere to new guidelines. It’s a time of unknown, where smaller businesses already used to having to think on their feet are being pushed to a faster than ever pace of change. Under such circumstances, developing a coherent and adaptive digital marketing strategy is crucial.
Developing Your Communications During A Global Pandemic
This situation has never occurred before in living memory. That means that all bets are off as to how the pandemic might develop over time and its full effect on consumer behavior. During such times, having a plan is paradoxically both essential and extremely difficult. We have all seen our inboxes fill up over the past few weeks as companies struggled to get to grips with what to communicate in a time of uncertainty—balancing that pin-fine line between offering support and trying to keep
their operations going in whatever way they could. Of course, looking like you’re trying to profiteer from such a disaster could be a reputation-ending mistake. Equally, to do nothing risks looking insensible and unresponsive. All the lessons we have learned about crisis communications are being tested to their utmost extent. Customers do appreciate a business-as-usual message during uncertain times – as supermarkets have shown with their messaging over recent weeks. So while it is entirely right to acknowledge the severity of the situation, it doesn’t necessarily follow that your entire marketing plan must be shredded to start again. In essence, there are elements that you can probably still use, or adapt with a new spin. It all depends on the audience you have and their situation – at times like this running website polls, setting up online user groups and conducting some social listening can be good ways of gauging your contacts’ mood.
Using Non-Coronavirus Content
Before this situation occurred, most businesses will have been working away on content related to their brands, products, and service offers – content that still has value, even in the grip of such a dark situation. Many companies are now hesitant about being seen to create a conversation that doesn’t center around their direct response to the virus. But the truth is, as severely affected as daily life is, it hasn’t completely ground to a halt. Many customers are sick of hearing about it 24/7 and would appreciate other angles. So, how can you know if it’s okay to use your content? The key, as ever, is empathy. Truly understanding who your customer is, what their concerns are, and what they need to hear has always been the key to successful marketing – that’s just amplified with the current situation. Depending on your brand positioning, you may choose to acknowledge the lighter side by reposting comic memes, or it may be more appropriate to aim for a mix of supportive content, such as how-to guides with more product-focused items. For some businesses, it makes sense to offer guidance on an area of their expertise – think a hair salon using Instagram Live to teach customers how to see to their roots with a home hair dye kit, or a homewares brand offering free coloring-in templates to occupy bored children while parents work. Tapping into your audiences’ unique concerns and revisiting your brand values will allow you to find the right tone of voice to address them without making everything about the virus, but equally, avoid looking insensitive.
Stay Focused
It would be easy to lose sight of your goals at a time like this. But eventually, there will be some light at the end of the tunnel, and you would be wise to ensure that your company is in the right position to take full advantage of that moment when it comes. Take the time to revisit your original business plan and reconnect with the vision and values that you had when you started. If it feels time to hold back on issuing something, it is equally a good time to re-evaluate and plan. Map out what a return to some kind of normal would look like for you. Stock up on supplies, like sourcing new pop-up banners, planning a refit if you have premises or something as simple as buying in promotional items like lanyards from Dynamic Gift so that you are ready to move quickly when green shoots start to appear. It can be very easy to get demotivated at the moment, so focusing on preparation and things that you can control is a good tactic.
Build Your Collateral
While some activities are necessarily paused, it’s a chance to develop the collateral that you have available. This could mean interviewing past customers on the phone or email to build case studies, refreshing the literature you use, gathering together a stock of evergreen blog posts or product images, or pre-authoring some social media posts. It’s an opportunity to do some housekeeping, tackle those admin tasks that you don’t usually have time to do, and get paperwork and taxes in order so that you’re ahead of the game. Having a stock of marketing collateral that you can turn to when things are busy again, and having a to-do list longer than you can manage will pay dividends in the future.
Review Your Website
Your website is your shop window to the world – the first place that customers, investors, suppliers, and business partners go to understand your business. Keeping on top of it is a task that requires constant attention, so understandably it can sometimes slip down the list of a smaller organization’s priorities. Lockdown is a good time to remedy this, as you may be experiencing higher traffic than usual. Even services that cannot be performed in lockdown are seeing a higher rate of people researching their purchase decision, wanting information. Your website is the central resource for this. So, even if you aren’t able to make as many sales now, you can cue them up for the future. Undertaking usability studies on your site can help you understand the most popular areas and information that your website has, what visitors are looking for, and areas their journey may stall. A comprehensive review of analytics data can also provide insight and direction as to which areas need attention. Making sure that your website also adheres to the standards of accessibility is also hugely important – accessible design is good design. Web designers are able to operate remotely, so if you can afford to invest in that redesign you’ve been putting off for ages, now is a great time to take the plunge.
Going For Brand Over Conversion
Optimizing your marketing funnel for during such a disastrous situation generally involves adjusting your activities to replace very focused conversion activities with brand and relationship building. So adjust your communications away from special offers and strong calls to action to acknowledge the uncertainty and disruption that the world is facing. Review all your creatives to make sure that the tone is reassuring and full of empathy. Consumers are watching and reading far more content at the moment, so divert your resources into brand focused activities. The majority of your marketing budget right now should be going towards top of the funnel activities that position your business without looking overly ‘salesy’. Make it clear that you are listening and responding to any concerns, doing your utmost to protect customers and employees and striving to provide a service with minimal disruption under extraordinary circumstances. Customers respect such a message, as it acknowledges the situation without being either defeatist or dismissive.
Being Prepared To Pivot
Above all else, focus on being extremely flexible and reactive to the changing conditions. Use all the real-time data insights you can gather to inform your next move. Fine-tune your advertising strategy to match fluctuations in the market that impact costs. Monitor trends closely along with search query volume on your most relevant keywords and use these as indicators of your next step in marketing. Now more than ever you need to be closely connected to shifting customer moods and expectations. Try to react quicker to what your data is telling you. Take what you can see happening and use it to optimise your budget spend, so that if you see one channel or campaign performing especially well you can take budget from other areas to support it. All good marketing should be data-driven, but in a crisis situation shortening the gap between analysis and action is vital in order to stay ahead of the curve.
The businesses which emerge stronger from the coronavirus pandemic will be those who can adapt. Already the globally connected nature of the market demands continual innovation and repositioning – but this is even more true during a crisis situation. Quick decisions can still be informed ones, and could ensure the survival of your company.
