There are lessons to be learned from this current marketing environment. Not even the best prepared businesses could have planned for the economic fallout that is taking place during this pandemic. How should business owners and marketers respond? Is it too late to make effective changes to your marketing plan? There are steps you can take to stay relevant and visible.
You might be tempted to dial back your marketing, but for the long-term health of your company, now’s the time to take action. It’s true that personal selling is still taking a hit and traffic into brick-and-mortar stores is sparse. You cannot even sample consumers in grocery stores. What you lose in personal selling marketing power, you will have to make up in marketing power using other promotional mix channels.
Beefing up publicity efforts is a quick way to replace some of the face-to-face contact that will be lost with the lack of personal selling. That’s one place you can still reach the big groups. Publicity as a sales tool is underutilized by most companies and it is relatively easy to ramp up. Putting your best salespeople in front of reporters and producers who have big audiences is always a win. Plus, unlike expos and trade shows, your competition isn’t right there beside you. I see a lot of trade show money shifting toward publicity and media coverage.
How can you squeeze into the media’s conversations if your product seems unrelated to the headlines?
As the coronavirus persists, we are seeing a market for stories that take people’s minds off their troubles. Instead of worrying about protecting themselves or buying the right type of hand sanitizer, people are seeking fun, interesting stories as a means of relief.
As people get burned out and begin to turn away from the bad news, the media will be looking for ways to change the narrative so they can hang onto their audience share. We’ve arranged tens of thousands of product news stories over the last 30 years so we’ve seen this demand for good news stories to offset the bad ones many times before.
Digital marketing is a great way to maintain social distancing
We’re seeing some of the marketing horsepower absorbed by websites and social media. Since shopping online has become a necessity, marketers need to ensure that their websites are equipped for e-commerce and, perhaps even more important, that their Amazon storefronts are optimized for sales.
Now is also not the time to stay quiet on social channels. Consider virtual sneak peeks into the lives of your work-from-home business life, videos offering brand-appropriate tips or lessons, or at the very least, diversifying your social media stream to meet your audience’s needs.
I would like to makes another important point, when you’ve got to change marketing strategies on the fly, you’d better have the basic marketing concepts down pat so you can make intelligent marketing decisions. Many marketers ride the wave in good times without fully understanding what underpins good marketing. The CEO’s Guide to Marketingis the book every marketer should read before their boss does. Most CEOs would be shocked at how little their marketing teams actually know about marketing concepts and process.
I predict that the marketing environment will have long-lasting social implications. As for promoting your company and products in the short term, I cannot stress enough that now is no time to be shooting from the hip. Know your marketing terms and concepts, and how they relate to one another. Understand what’s happening with the marketing environment and how that relates to other concepts such as the marketing mix, where your product is in its life cycle and the innovation adopter curve. Whether it’s in response to this pandemic or the next major event, understanding basic marketing concepts and following a sound marketing process will make your business agile and responsive.
