Introduction: Moving towards the new normal? Well, Industries need to sustain and navigate through this crisis using the right sort of strategy. Here's a gripping article on 'How to remodel your marketing strategies keeping the present situation in mind.'
The corona virus pandemic has nearly spread to more than two hundred countries in the world. The virus has disrupted the lives and thrown work out of order. With a lockdown imposed in most of the nations, and social distancing being the only way to save ourselves, there is a sudden shift in the customers' behavior. Industries need to sustain and navigate through this crisis using the right techniques (now that the old assumptions and metrics are of no use). Marketing leaders need to come up with evolving strategies to thrive and retain their customers, besides creating a robust Business Continuity Plan. This guide aims to help you tune your market strategies.
Impact Of COVID-19 On Customers Behaviour And Industries
COVID-19 has changed consumer behaviors and influenced many industries tremendously. What is going to happen next is very uncertain and too early to say. In these unprecedented times, it is vital to make informed decisions on marketing campaigns. The two main areas to think about are:
Consumers Behaviour Changes
With every company encouraging the work-from-home concept, it is evident that people are spending much time online for their personal use. Further, with the lockdown imposed in several countries, people use delivery services, causing a surge in their demand. With the market and economy seeing a downward spiral, customers spend more responsibly, cutting down all their unnecessary wants. This is something marketers should take note of and quickly edit their campaigns as per the current situation.
How Industries Are Hit?
With the onset of the pandemic and travel restrictions placed globally, most of the international events got canceled, be it sports, conferences, or an expo. With the closure of malls, cinemas, restaurants, and theme parks, it has become very challenging for businesses to generate profits. A majority of companies have taken a back seat. This has hit the company, its employees, and even their work schedule. COVID-19 has caused delivery delays/shipment slowdowns, forcing companies to make quick and immediate changes to their marketing campaigns throughout the next few months. With so much of havoc, businesses need to provide precise direction to their employees; at the same time, take proper precautions for the health of their employees. They also must focus on how to contain the virus appropriately and offer support in these hard times.
Adjusting Your Current Marketing Strategies
To survive the pandemic and overall economic slowdown, every marketing leader should bring in some changes in their existing strategies. They should make use of tools like flexibility, innovation, coordination, and understanding. Here are some quick insights on how to adjust your marketing strategies keeping in the current situation in mind:
Bring together your crisis management team: In this unprecedented time, you need to build a crisis management team comprising of executive members and marketing members.
Protect your team: Enable them to work from home and Build strategies to manage your team remotely while social distancing. Update them with the right information regularly.
Predict customer's needs: A complete lockdown can cause a lot of changes in the way a customer thinks and feel. As a marketing leader, you would need to predict the customer's needs and offer solutions.
Be where customers are: People are now at home and usually hooked on to their devices. The use of social media has increased like never before. Marketers and advertisers should look for their customers here and tweak their ad-spends.
Assess various scenarios and build communication plans: Create a robust plan which takes into consideration multiple possibilities in the current situation. Create holding statements that are empathetic as well as action-oriented.
Use Martech (Marketing Technologies): Brainstorm ideas to serve your customers with the limited resources available. Make use of the technology to address problems a company would face in this pandemic.
Customer experience should be your focus: Leaders should focus on motivating and inspiring customers by giving them the right information and going the extra mile to help them. Stand out of the crowd, by being empathetic and prioritizing client experience. It would also help you develop a loyal client base.
Convert into a purpose-led brand: Lockdown may be the only way to contain the disease, but it also has a severe mental effect on different age groups. Your organization could help here by engaging and entertaining them by using innovative methods to reach them – further building a lasting relationship with your clients.
Customer Retention Is Of Utmost Importance
Holding on to your customers while they change their behavior is one of the top priorities for marketers, which can be achieved with the following approaches:
Communicate: Reach out to your customers and inform them that you are open. You can stay in touch by offering valuable updates regularly.
Engage: Stay on top of their minds by making maximum use of your resources. They shall tend to remember you better even when the pandemic is over.
Hear your customers: Know more about your customers by offering channels of communication like emails, social media, or feedback surveys. This way, you know what they want and understand their changing behavior.
Explore choices to fulfill your promises: With events canceling out worldwide, you may have to come with innovative ways to achieve your promises. For instance, offer a virtual event or hold a webinar instead.
Beyond COVID-19: The road after the crisis
What would be our answer when the next generation asks us how we navigated through the crisis?
Industries need to think and work across five stages, starting from the crisis to the new normal that will arise after the war against corona virus has been accomplished.
Resolve: Learn and understand the current challenges faced by the company's employees, stakeholders, clients, and technology.
Resilience: Determine the financial challenges and other issues due to the shutdown of companies and economic fall.
Return: Build a comprehensive plan to return to normal once the pandemic is over.
Re-imagination: Reimagine on how the new normal would look like, and how to reinvent the wheel?
Reform: Understand how competitive environments may take a shift.
No one knows when this pandemic is going to get over; however, it is something we should all learn from, so we can make our next generation ready for such an outbreak.
We would love to know your thoughts and how you tweaked your marketing strategy to fight the Corona virus outbreak. Feel free to drop in your comments.