Marketing Approach in Crisis

We are all going through tough times and the full economic impact of COVID-19 is yet to be understood. This is the time to look at all possible scenarios that can emerge and get prepared to work smarter in order to tackle the challenges ahead.

Following are some steps for your marketing activity during this downturn:

Work smarter to retain your customers;
Be visible to your target market with a relevant value proposal;
Focus and drive conversions with your value proposal;
Measure, test, learn and keep repeating this cycle.

No ready solution

Since all are careful about their spending, sales & marketing budgets appear as an easy cut that can be made but this at best is a short-term fix that has long-term consequences. Maintaining visibility is key for you and your company. Customer confidence is to be maintained for their continued investment with you as they want the right machine and adequate support from trustable companies. It’s always cheaper to retain an existing customer than to acquire a new one.

Marketing automation costs the lowest, and is the easiest and most effective way of keeping in touch with your customers. This should not translate to email spamming. Keeping in touch with your customers in a personalized and contextualized manner at every touch point in their digital journey is important. Use your human talent to understand the value you provide and the value customer wants, and develop creative campaigns. Bring in technology and tools to automate delivery through measurable social channels.

This will deliver ROI and ensure that the job gets done systematically and automatically.

Content creation and asset production are essential ingredients of a tactical marketing campaign to keep in touch with customers – both existing and to be. Share the innovations that you are currently doing, highlight what differentiates you from your competition, and promote stories of key achievements of the team and the client wins.

Social media builds brand awareness and gets more visibility. Hence, ensure you get found at every stage of the purchasing lifecycle, from exploring new suppliers to evaluating specific offerings. What other people say about your company and its offerings is more important than what you say about yourself. Customer experience is key.

It is not easy and there is definitely not one solution. The need is to experiment, measure, and learn. If it works, do more of the same. If it doesn’t, change the strategy and move on.