Marketing 101 for Pandemics

Calamities, disasters, or pandemics do not wait for an invite. The occurrence is organic or sometimes accidental. As understood by the Spanish flu 1918 and the great depression 1930s, nothing lasts forever. However, the duration of an unprecedented event, its severity, and management vary from time to time. What makes the situation worse is its unprecedented, unprepared, and uncalled for nature. Since the outbreak of Covid-19, every industry except a few has suffered. The online industry has boomed and flourished undoubtedly but the physical stores and businesses have suffered from low sales and unsuccessful marketing efforts.

Marketing Hurdles:

The fear lingered around us during the quarantine period of almost 5 months, rendering marketing efforts by most companies useless. Concerns of the customers grew exponentially as the Covid-19 cases grew. The course of action for different calamities is different but not definite. Marketing hurdles by most companies were due to

• Customer’s increasing concern for safety
• Customer’s focus on need-based products rather than luxuries
• Need to save money and disposable income which was earlier spent on luxury products or wants

Businesses need to evolve and prepare themselves for an unprecedented event. Instead of going MIA, businesses must adapt to any twisted and uncalled for the situation. Some of the ways a company could survive and drift through the calamities are stated below,

Situational or Scenario Analysis:

For the day to appear, the night must come. Likewise, for good to nurture, the worst must happen. With every downfall comes the reason to survive and situational analysis helps you find that reason.

• Careful analysis of the market
• The buying patterns of customers
• The growing concerns of the stakeholder 
• External/governmental/environmental factors
• Competitor’s move 

The above-mentioned essentials must be studied before initiating and marketing efforts. Every cloud has a silver lining and amongst the analysis, a business may identify a potential opportunity to capitalize on. 

Less is More:

To make the best out of a given situation, follow this rule. Since the customer is going after the need-based product or service, try emphasizing the need-based part alone. Focus and concentrate all your marketing efforts and energy on the bare minimum to get you through the abyss. Start from less and when the customer starts responding, zoom in a bit more. Tap the audience with the cheapest offering to enable value for money philosophy.  

A Shift from OOH Marketing to Personalized Marketing:

The entire purpose of quarantine is to stay at home therefore, out of home marketing and billboards, etc. would not bring any larger audience. Instead focus on text message, email marketing, or online/digital marketing efforts. They are cheaper marketing strategies and the reach is louder and bigger. 

Inform and Entertain:

Instead of focusing wholly on the entertainment part of the commercials and marketing efforts, slide towards information too. Educating and entertaining at the same time is a good marketing tool to help with marketing efforts. The purpose of infotainment is to inform and enlighten the audience along with serving entertainment. Make sure the information is following the current calamity be it an earthquake or Tsunami. Do not overwhelm the customer with information that stirs panic even more. Be intelligent with what you put out in the open. 

Observe, Judge and Predict:

The situational analysis serves the “observe” part. The “Less is more, infotainment and personalized direct marketing” would be necessary to judge the current situation based on your company’s efforts and the customer’s response to that. Lastly, forecast after the entire process to see if you could pursue the same strategy again. Forecast the future patterns and how you could minimize the damage done or about to happen or to completely avoid.

Marketers may be faced with the toughest decisions during an unparalleled calamity as the burden falls on them primarily for sales boost and robust marketing campaigns. The key is to never let the situation demoralize your branding efforts.