While companies may need to cut non-essential expenses during a crisis, such as travel and entertainment, COVID-19 has some companies asking themselves, “Should we still be focused on marketing?”.
The short answer is yes. Savvy C-suite execs and business owners may shift gears, but marketing will always remain a priority, even during the most challenging of times.
Over the course of my career, I have been elbow-deep in crises like the 1987 stock market crash, 9/11 and the 2008 Great Recession and was fortunate to take away some valuable lessons from those life-shaping experiences. While all different, these events meant we needed to fine-tune a client’s focus, revise their messages and, in some cases, help them pivot their marketing. Some suggestions for keeping your marketing current right now are:
Right-size your marketing efforts and spend appropriately. Now is CLEARLY not the time for an elaborate, expensive rollout of a new product . . . but it IS important to keep communication open with your key constituencies (clients/ customers, referral sources, your community and yes, members of the press). People are hungry for information and communication can be very reassuring right now. Forward-thinking executives also know that we will get back to business (maybe not “as usual”) after the COVID-19 crisis, and people will be looking to resume activities, whether it is hiring an attorney to purchase a home, lease new office space or join a golf club. It is important to stay frontal lobe—to remind your clients that your products and services exist and will be available when they are ready to make a purchasing decision or engage your firm.
Pick your words well. Try to avoid the boilerplate phrases that people have already become tone-deaf to (“out of an abundance of caution” comes to mind); craft your message in your own words and honestly. It is perfectly OK to address worry and fear and to invite your clients or customers to share their thoughts or needs with you, as well. Review your marketing and change the tone and messages as needed; now, as always, they must be timely and relevant. Don’t overly promote. Assess your email subject lines, imagery, website home page, ad copy, social media posts, etc. to make sure they are appropriate in tone and message. Without question, make sure your website’s landing page has clear information about your firm’s or brand’s coronavirus response up front. Doing nothing may be perceived as insensitivity to the crisis we are dealing with.
Pivot to the virtual. Trade shows, conferences and in-person meetings with reporters are off the table for the foreseeable future. Find ways to leverage digital alternatives such as podcasts, vlogs or blogs, interviews via Zoom or Skype and webinars.
Go where the people are. Everyone is online now. If you haven’t yet developed and deployed a social media strategy, now is the time to look more closely at these channels. Start slowly rather than overcommit from the outset; pick one channel like LinkedIn for B2B or Facebook for B2C businesses and get comfortable with the medium. Once you have incorporated social media into your routine marketing mix, you can expand your presence into other channels online.
If your company historically has valued print media placements differently from online media placements, check out how publications leverage their digital coverage. Perhaps they offer an Opinion section online that is not featured in their print edition, or a podcast opportunity that would allow you to conduct a recorded interview with an editor that can be shared on your social media channels. We really appreciate the value of online media coverage because it is searchable, often shareable (if there is no paywall), portable and typically has a longer shelf life than a print placement.
Build brand loyalty during a downturn. How you communicate through this crisis can influence how your clients view you beyond the crisis. This requires finding appropriate ways to support your brand or company AND your employees and community at the same time. “Doing good” is quite simply the right thing to do right now; building goodwill among your employees (your strongest brand ambassadors) and your communities is a win-win-win. One client in the hospitality and leisure space turned out hundreds of meals to feed healthcare workers in its community. Another client, a statewide professional association, has committed to providing up-to-the-minute information to all applicable businesses in the state—not just its members—about critical regulatory and legal requirements precipitated by the COVID-19 healthcare crisis.
Keep your eye on the long term. It is important to address your client’s immediate concerns and right-size your message for the current environment. However, savvy marketers can also take this opportunity to strategize their marketing for the “new normal.” Think about what your clients will need once the urgency around the crisis has subsided.
What resources will you need to line up?
What prior plans need to be rescheduled or revised (think: a meeting-turned-webinar) for the new post-COVID-19 environment?
When is the right time to return to the messaging you relied on up until the COVID-19 crisis?
When do you start to promote your products or services again?
The exact timing is contingent on a number of factors. Smart marketers will know in their gut when it feels appropriate. Consider how to prepare now so you are ready when that window of opportunity is open again. If you want to talk to us about communicating through this crisis or gearing up your PR and marketing communications plans for the New Normal, please contact us at nina@ninadietrich.com.