During these troubling times companies have to make difficult decisions about where to cut expenditures until they can resume normal operations. Often one of the first things to go is marketing, but although cuts may be necessary it’s a mistake to stop interacting with your customers and clients entirely. It’s important that you continue to reach out with customized branding. Here are a few tips for marketing your brand during coronavirus:
1. One of the most important things you can do to help your brand is to demonstrate what you are doing to help your community and to change the focus of messaging from sales to concern for the well-being of others. This will affect how consumers think about your business and encourage them to remember you when the crisis has passed.
2. Help your customers navigate their way through the crisis. Whatever goods or services your company provides, offer guidance that can help them get through this time. You may need to re-engineer your solutions and refocus your messaging to fit the current need.
3. Now is also the time to look at your current marketing approach with the intent to suspend, at least temporarily, those activities that are no longer relevant and increase those that highlight useful services while stay-at-home directives are in place. In fact, anything that makes isolation easier has appeal. Figure out how your company can create new content such as informative or entertaining video clips, articles, photos and stories.
4. Track metrics based on current conditions. Your pre-virus numbers are no longer useful, and things are changing rapidly. That means you have to watch closely and be nimble. What works one week may not be right the next week. Use all of the data you have available before making marketing decisions.
5. Take a critical view of your website and update page titles, descriptive headers and content with new information that will help you gain market share, especially if your competitors are slow to take these critical steps.
6. Make an action plan to connect with your customers with activities such as the following: 100 handwritten cards/notes sending wishes and prayers to customers and people closest to you in your business; 500 “wishing-you-well” texts to individuals who will be critical to your business as you come out of this; and 1000 new “Connections” on LinkedIn to keep building your pipeline of potential new customers or clients.
7. Rethink your online marketing frequency. Maybe you’ve been sending out a monthly email to communicate specials, events and other news about your business. But amidst the current uncertainty and with circumstances changing rapidly, you might want to send out a weekly newsletter instead or create short email campaigns if something important happens in between your regularly scheduled communications. And in terms of social media marketing, posting daily right now isn’t a bad idea, especially if you have specials on your products or services to offer. You’ll be making sure that your customers know that you’re still doing business and that can count on you.
8. Position your business for success after the pandemic. This will all be over at some point, and you don’t want to have to start marketing from scratch. You want to be out in front of the competition, building on the efforts you’ve made over the past few months. You can’t let the coronavirus distract you from looking to the future.
Now is not the time to stop marketing efforts. It’s the time for you to be even more strategic in implementing them. Just be sure to adjust your strategy so that you are meeting your customers where they are now – at home and online. Your business can still thrive if you’re willing to try new ways to connect with your customers and to show compassion and empathy.