Ways to adapt your marketing for COVID-19

I am sure like me you are inundated with emails related to the crisis. Some are useful and some plain daft; trying to sell products on the back of it. It’s a fine line between keeping communications going and being seen to be exploitative.  With things altering daily, finding the right way to communicate in such a fast-changing situation is a major challenge. Here are some steps to consider when adapting your marketing strategy during these difficult times.

Consider your messaging carefully 

Everyone is looking at prioritising their marketing budgets. It is especially important for you to stay connected to your customers at this time, so avoid cutting marketing all together. Instead, focus on adapting your marketing,  recognising that customers are likely to be at home, will have more time to read and may welcome brands who are trying to maintain a sense of normalcy in its marketing. The key thing is to make sure your message is appropriate.  

Plan for all scenarios

The most important thing for you to do is plan. You need a flexible plan which looks at best to worst case scenarios and plans for each. For example, many industry events have been moved to later in the year. The best-case scenario is it will be business as usual, but don't wait until they get cancelled to develop alternative marketing ideas. 

Be seen as a leader

Can you develop a thought leadership strategy? Do you have industry data that you can share with your customers, so they have insight to tackle the situation? If you are a larger organisation with in-house HR and finance experts, can you give your smaller customers access to advice and support to help them navigate the financial packages being offered by the Government? 

Our media wants news

We’ve spoken to our trade media and they are calling out for stories that are corona-related and in particular looking at comments and data. The media also want stories that give people a break from this and are really keen to receive press office news and information as usual. 

Keep listening to customers

It’s important to keep listening to your customers to build a picture of what’s happening with them so that you can react accordingly. MCA has just launched its daily newsletter gathering data and observations from the industry. You can also use social listening tools to keep track of specific topics that are relevant to your business at this time. 

Ramp up social 

The use of social media is through the roof. Ramp up your social media at this time to stay connected with your customers and with the industry. Focus on content that is helpful and share your good news stories. Reshare things your customers are doing to show support. Share and comment on key breaking news from the hospitality industry bodies.

Focus on digital

Ours is an industry based on networking. With events being cancelled we need to move our interactions online. Look at doing webinars or live video. I will share more advice on how to do this from my colleague Fiona, as some platforms perform better than others.

Look for ways to help

Get involved with and use social media to share industry initiatives – here are just some of them:

Hospitality Action’s emergency appeal https://www.hospitalityaction.org.uk/donate/

Springboard is calling for monetary donations to keep its services running. https://springboard.uk.net/urgentplea/

FareShare runs food banks across the country which are all under pressure. https://fareshare.org.uk

• Use time to prepare and plan for the bounce back. It will happen. 

We all have projects that we put on the back burner. Can you redeploy marketing efforts to create a new offer; refresh your website; develop other digital assets like videos or podcasts. Think about your future strategy. For example, there have been several posts on LinkedIn calling for people to support Britain when we come out of this from staycations to encouraging people to buy British. How can you help your customers to get ready for this? 

It goes without saying that if I can help you in any way please give me a call. Thinking of you, your colleagues and your families at this time.