Words can make or break businesses during the COVID 19 times!

It is essential to have the correct marketing and communication strategy today. One that is kind, useful and visible. How effective is your company’s?

Everything will be fine!

How did that make you feel? Hopeful for a moment? At ease? Ready to put up a good fight? Did you forget, just for a minute, that your business is struggling, or that you just lost your job or that the Coronavirus is lurking at every corner of your life.

The power of words, they can make or break you. Words can win someone’s heart or brutally break it. They can cause a meteoric rise or a catastrophic fall. They can start wars and win elections! History is witness. More recently, through the ‘Make America Great Again’ slogan, Donald Trump was able to reflect his supporters’ desires and move towards an unexpected victory in 2016 elections in the USA. Closer home, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ‘Ache Din Aane Wale Hai’ slogan was able to capture the sentiments of Indians by giving them confidence and hope of a brighter future. Result; his victory in in 2016. JK Rowling made a fortune out of words, and Nike made us keep going back to it year after year through ‘Just Do It’.

The COVID 19 Times are difficult, and hence also the perfect point to GO back to the power of ‘Words’. With the pace slowed down, it is imperative that companies up their game in communications, and not retract. And that’s where the role of the marketing and communication departments becomes crucial, now more than ever.

Both, the companies relevant right now such as pharma or tech, as well as those waiting in the wings, such as hospitality, and travel and air can productively utilize this time to communicate with their existing customers and engage a larger base. Not surprisingly, more people are on the Internet (for obvious reasons), a study states that there has been a spike of 60% in traffic across mobile and web. There is an obvious surge in traffic to news sites and platforms. Therefore, it easier to catch the eyeballs and have an audience. Most of us have been glued to some sort of a screen, phone, computer or TV.

But a word of warning! The COVID 19 has impacted each life across the world in varying ways – some have lost loved ones, some have been ill, some isolated, some have lost or are on the verge of job losses or businesses. It is the time to empathize, rather than sell hard. Don’t push your customer, rather communicate and present yourself. One mistake and you may not be forgiven.

A few pointers on how to word your communication on B2C engagement, done via emails, Whats App, social media or text messages:

• Communicate, keep the tone conversational, but not casual
• But Avoid being witty
• Have a more toned-down-sombre approach, rather than a shouting from rooftops one
• Stay Positive, helpful and compassionate!
• Aim at being visible, yet not exploitative
• Think contribution, not conversion. Don’t aim at making more business but adding value to the customer’s life through your product offering. Don’t hard sell, hard empathize.
• Be careful with your call to action, the erstwhile popular hits such as Book Now or Call Now are a complete NO. Nothing is more urgent in the customer’s mind right now than getting through the pandemic. Rather, say something like, ‘We are Open for you’, ‘We Are Here for you, ‘We care for your well being, and are ready to deliver’.
• Don’t Use: advantage, offer, profit, opportunity
• Use: contribute, we, care, cope, respond

For hospitality and travel companies, the battle has been momentous, because of the extreme lock down measures. But a recent report from Izea suggested that self-isolation could lead to an increase in consumers researching future holidays. A survey found that 55% of US consumers who usually travel five or more times per year say they ‘may’ or will ‘likely’ purchase a future holiday while confined to their homes during the Coronavirus outbreak. The trend is similar in India, where people are looking at taking short, weekend breaks or road trips or trips to wildlife parks, locations that are easily approachable and away from crowds.

A few ‘to dos’ for the travel company communication:

• Lots of travel companies faced the conundrum of messaging when lock down was imposed. The best messaging then and now is to align with the Government guidelines. Ask people to stay at home when the advisory says, and ask them to be careful and maintain social distancing. Going against the grain would be a foolish strategy for obvious reasons. Let people see your company as a friend helping and sharing with them these tough times.
• Rather than focus on acquiring new customers (a tough task during Covid 19 times), - nurture, interact, update – existing customers. This is an investment for the future.

• Help customers with facts; what is opening, where they can travel or not. E.g.; we educated our customers on the varying (and often confusing) rules of quarantine in different states.
• Keep a positive messaging and continue to engage on travel destinations of the future. Travel is the one fundamental need of people, give them inspirational travel content, that uplifts them.
• Have content that is consumable, something that is contemporary and also of use. Beyond Stay did a series of local recipes scoured from our chefs across 18 locations. We also tied up with our partner, who does wellness workshops at our properties, and initiated live yoga and wellness workshops.
• Do not (as reiterated earlier) do paid marketing sales campaign. That would be an insensitive thing to do.
• Rather, give flexible and fluid dates and offers for booking in the future and educate people on customer-friendly refund policies.
• To ease the mind of the guests, have campaigns they can identify with. Our research and customer feedback showed that travelers are still searching, many looking at booking trips for Q4 2020 and early 2021, At Beyond Stay we have launched #goingaboveandbeyond, a campaign focusing on the safe and secure initiatives at our resorts, for when guests are ready to travel. 

Being a travel and hospitality company with a focus on activities and experiences, we, at Beyond Stay, faced a concentrated crisis, especially during March of 2020. What can we talk about? While the world is crumbling, there is the obvious lock down whose end we don’t see any time soon. Nobody would want to look at travel pictures. I was most certainly uncomfortable even posting pretty travel shots. So we, as a team racked our brains. The ideas that came up ranged from inspirational travel content, to destination factual guides or tours, a more educational slant of content to local recipes from chefs at each of our properties across India. More recently, our safety initiatives. Something that made people feel pleasant and they could use and consume. Result; A 30 % jump of followers and engagement on all platforms. Something we had been struggling with for past few months.

It reinstated my faith: It’s only words, but words are all we have!