April 2 2020

5 Tips: Marketing NOW in a Pandemic

What To Do With Your Marketing Now

It would seem that pretty much everything we have planned for our marketing has now changed. It is either completely irrelevant or shifted to a point in the future… And we still don’t know when we’ll be able to implement it or whether it will be relevant when we do. No, we don’t have control of the future – we only have control of NOW!

Let’s do something productive with NOW.

Takeaways from the below blog: Tips on what I recommend you do for your marketing:

Reassess and reallocate budgets
Review your delivery methods for products/services and marketing messages
Focus on your clients – deliver as much value and support as you can
Invest – get advice on this first!
Don’t exploit or scaremonger with the wrong messaging
Be memorable for the right reasons!

There are 3 types of businesses in this period according to Mark Ritson (Marketing Week April 2020):

Flex – Businesses not badly impacted and have seen an upturn in business.
Fix – Businesses not completely knocked out of the game but their marketing has been impacted.
Freeze – Nothing to do at the moment.

I have been researching and learning my way through the past couple of weeks around changes to marketing in periods of uncertainty and recession and it is obvious to say that there is going to be a lot of changes to all businesses but when this is over there will be a return to normality, at some point. The world will not change forever.

People will still pay your prices. People will still shop online and offline. People will still react to promotions and people will still want your product and/or service.

There will be 3 stages to this period:

A lockdown running to September-ish
Newfound freedom when we come out of Covid-19 Crisis = 3-5 weeks
The Recession – 2021

What we need to do now is adjust our thinking about this time and make sure that we survive the next few months and plan for our bounce back in the recession. There are some tips below on how I believe we can manage this. Whatever you do don’t bury your head in the sand.

Tip 1: Reassess and reallocate budgets

Review your marketing plan.
Reallocate budgets – where are you spending or what has changed that you can reallocate to another tactic?
Get advice around reallocating/cutting or reducing your marketing spend.
Collaborate with other businesses – how can you support or innovate – can you work on an idea together?

Tip 2: Delivery Methods

Have you seen an increase of business or decline? Can you change how you deliver your service/products to give more value to your clients or enable you to still be in business? (Did you see our video about this? Check it out here: https://youtu.be/qEveIGeE5WA )
Think about future options and ideas which could help you stay in business over the coming months.
Communicate your message through different methods – blogs, emails, social media, webinars, 1:1’s, Zoom calls, networking etc.
Make sure your planned content is relevant and empathetic to the here and now.

Tip 3: Focus on your clients – delivering value

Stay in contact with your clients
Don’t forget to let them know your new terms or changes to your business.
How can you deliver more value?
Keep connecting – use social media to connect with your audience, communicate via email and phone/video chat.

Tip 4: Invest

Now is the time to re-evaluate your marketing spend and when the time is right increasing your marketing spend will give you a better share of the market in the long term, or maintaining it but do your best not to reduce it. Advertising through a recession is proven to show increased market share and conversions than those businesses who don’t advertise or cut budgets.
As other businesses fail and other chose not to advertise this will help you to increase your market share and share of voice in the marketplace – this will not happen organically.
Choosing the right time and method of advertising will be key!

Tip 5: Don’t exploit or scaremonger

Stay true to your brand values
It is not the time for a sales pitch now is the time to support.
Don’t pretend to have the answers – we’re all learning right now.
Use this time to be an authority in your field for what you ‘do’ know not things you don’t.

Conclusion

Marketing is and has always been an evolving beast. It is now more important than ever to get your head out of the sand and be heard for the right reasons. Learn to adapt quickly and evolve with this period of huge change – stay competitive, be innovative and retain your customers and your reputation through delivering value and support where needed. In the UK we’ve been through a recession or two and have a huge amount of data which can help us through this forthcoming one. There will be opportunities for businesses to thrive but we have to make it through the tough times first. Ride the wave.

Make sure you have a plan for each period of the coming months/year because this will stand you in good stead for the future.

If you would like to discuss any of the above please book a free 1:1 with Lydia . Have you seen our video about How To: Do Social Media