It’s certainly a strange new world we’re living in. Uncertain times and there are major changes to how we do culture, community and commerce. This has meant plenty of change for us here at WOODS, how we work together, how we work with our clients and probably the biggest shift is what we’re advising our clients to do when it comes to marketing their businesses.
With such huge limitations on operations for most businesses and as our focus shifts to ensuring business continuity, it’s definitely tempting to shut up shop on your sales and marketing department and ignore it for at least the next 4 weeks….and reality is that most businesses will do that. This is exactly where we are seeing opportunities for our customers. For those that don’t wind down sales and marketing operations, there are opportunities to set their businesses to win in the future. In fact, data from the GFC shows that business who continue to actively market during a crisis recover 60% faster than those that don’t.
So, what are the 5 things that we’re advising our clients to think about?
Even when we come out of full lockdown, we’ll probably continue to operate with quite a few physical limitations. That means there is an increased importance on getting your digital strategy right and making sure you give your customers a great experience even without face to face contact. It’s a good time to think about how you can deliver that experience and start building it out, ready to capitalise on a post lockdown surge in activity.
Other than business continuity, one of the most important things is making sure your customers keep you top of mind. This is even more relevant when we see the increase in time spent on social media and digital channels. They have really become a lifeline of sorts for many people. Gadgets Now, an Indian tech news site, says that social media usage in India has jumped 87%. We’re a bit slower on the stats for Kiwi consumers, but anecdotally we’ve noticed a huge increase in activity.
What this means is that there is really a great opportunity for brands to remain top of mind by being smart with their organic social media right now. Pull your strategy together, do some research, get creative and put your business out there with some relevant and engaging content. Things like lockdown stories from your team, showing how you’re operating is a great way to engage.
People flocking to digital technology for connection is creating opportunities on channels that are not always considered, or that have been less effective in recent times. Naturally, focusing on organic social is the best tactic right now, but for those who do have some budget there are some awesome opportunities. We have seen a massive increase in the consumer usage of news sites, but a drop in advertising revenue. Therefore, it’s a great time to buy advertising from your main news channels, e.g NZ Herald and Stuff.co.nz and think about using radio, as there are some massive opportunities.
Messenger apps! We’re all on them a lot more and there are a bunch of advertising opportunities through Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp and others. The great thing is that these channels are giving us a lot of ability to target, so we can find the right customers for you, even if it’s just starting a conversation or giving them some inspiration for the future.
With all of these channels you need great content to be effective. But what great content looks like has even shifted in the last week. High quality content, by definition is relevant, noticeable, watchable, creates connection and is shareable. What’s relevant to us right now is very different than what was relevant a week ago. People are all of a sudden used to Zoom calling, watching more stories and seeing news media sharing less polished content. What this means is that less is really more and your required production budget for video just went down a fair bit. Recording a Zoom call, doing some face to camera on your smart phone, sharing your thoughts while having the kids running around in the background is now normal!
Get your team together, get creative come up with a few ideas that you could use (check with us professionals before you produce it though).
Yes, generic empathic posts about Covid-19 are overused and ineffective…. if not just annoying. But that doesn’t remove the power of empathy, if it’s genuine. For every business it’s different, but there may be ways you can help your customers.
An example for us is this blog. This is a way we can share information we have that is useful for our clients. We can always expand on this by jumping on the phone or even a video call or chat to help you plan, create and execute quickly at this tough time.
On that note, if there is anything that we can do to help please let us know, we want to see you succeed during this time. If we can help you with any of the above and to support you plan, create and deliver marketing that keeps you top of mind, then give Reuben a call.
