Handling the COVID-19 with your Marketing

With the COVID-19, we are confronted with an unprecedented crisis that we are all still trying to process whilst finding ways to come out of it with the least harm. Some of our clients have asked us how to handle the COVID-19 outbreak to mitigate the impact of this crisis situation with a cost-effective marketing strategy. Here is a bit of advice for your business. 

With more and more drastic measures being implemented by the Government across the world, the key lever to your marketing is to adjust your activities to the new customer behaviours so you are present where your audience’s eyes are, and your initiatives are matching their current needs and expectations. 

 

Marketing and crisis management

Some of us may benefit from the crisis but most of us will be negatively affected (if not already). The immediate answer from management will be to lower operating budgets, lower investment levels, and even freeze job creation. Many CFOs and CEOs will see marketing as a non-essential expense for overcoming the crisis, but they are wrong.

A lot of studies around crisis management were conducted after the most impactful economic crisis our generation has endured and they all came to the same conclusion. Marketing in times of crisis has revealed itself to be vital for business management in terms of crisis communication and recovery.

Here is what you can do in these two key crisis management areas.

 

Crisis communication

The main objective of crisis communication is to maintain a positive image of your brand whilst building trust with your audience.

• Reassure people that you are implementing the right measures to avoid the spread of the virus.
• Inform them of any changes to your usual service/product delivery.
• Demonstrate that you are capable of responding.
• Empathise with them and let them know that you are there to address any of their concerns.

 

Recovery

With marketing efforts for recovery, your main goal is to ensure that you’ll be able to bounce back quickly when the crisis is over. Without forgetting that during crisis situations, people tend to change their brand preferences so there is a real opportunity for your brand to take over some of your competitors’ market shares. As such, your audience must remember you when they are ready to purchase.

• Publish informative and engaging content to your digital channels.
• Gather feedback from your existing customers through User Generated Content (UGC) campaigns to build trust and credibility among prospects. Click here to read a recent post we did that will give you insights on how to run UGC campaigns.
• Conduct surveys and polls to obtain customer insight so you can improve your offering and communication by addressing specific needs and expectations.
• Activate promotional programs. In times of crisis, purchase decisions are mainly driven by price instead of value. Whilst value should remain a key message in your communications during the crisis, price should also be integrated into specific promotional campaigns. Offering higher quality products for the same price, or the same quality at a lower price will have a positive effect on your performance.

 

 

As mentioned before, the key to effectiveness for the above initiatives is communicating them where your audience’s eyes will be.

During a crisis, social media usage increases significantly as people seek information from there. With quarantines requirements added to this fact, people will be spending countless hours browsing the web. So, make sure to leverage digital mediums to their best, pushing content and engaging with your audience as much as you can.

Here is a template that we have put together to facilitate the distribution of content.

 

Content Distribution Template

Here is a template that we have put together to facilitate the distribution of content.

 

 

We hope that these recommended approaches will help you in adopting a clearer marketing strategy. Use this time to experiment, learn and grow from the experience. We all may or may not go through the same amount of hurt, however, if we all pivot and shift with our market, we will be able to come out the other side, stronger and wiser.  

If you have any questions or are looking to solidify your product / service in the changing market with a solid strategy, we are just a phone call away.

We are dedicated to your success.

The Yah Marketing team.