The COVID-19 pandemic has paused almost all economies around the world, which has directly reduced financial forecasts for 2020.
As a direct response to the global crisis, some companies are cutting back on marketing, while others are turning agile and coming up with new and interesting ways to engage their target audience during difficult times. It's the brands that are readily engaging with their audience that are making the most of it in 2020.
The truth is -- If you want to stay in business, you can’t stay idle for long. You need to start devising a post lockdown marketing plan which can help your business thrive as we get out of these uncertain times.
1- Consider the changing market needs
The world has changed, and the market as well as the customer expectations have changed with it. You can’t rely on the data from 6 months ago or even 2 months ago to create a marketing plan. You need to stay agile to understand the changing marketing trends and respond to them in real-time. You also can’t measure your performance against the old metrics and KPIs.
Re-assess all the major factors for your marketing plan, including:
What are your main marketing objectives?
How has customer behavior changed in the last few months?
What is the new brand messaging?
What is the optimum revenue that the company needs to make to stay afloat?
What is the new marketing budget and priorities?
2- Step up with customer empathy
We cannot understate COVID-19’s impact on consumer behavior. In the last few months, 76 percent of people have picked up new routines, behaviors, and habits. Customers are also readily trying out new brands. Over 36 percent of them plan to continue using the new brands they tried during the lockdown. That means, your post lockdown marketing strategy should be focused on gaining new customers which can eventually turn into loyal customers for years to come.
Many companies have stepped up in times of crisis -- While SaaS companies are offering their tools at discounted prices to help people work from home, other companies are directly helping hospitals and frontline workers by offering relief and safety gear.
This is the perfect time for your company to launch marketing campaigns for special offers, new services, and other helpful approaches.
3- Reshape your sales and marketing funnel
To say that things are hard right now would be an understatement. People are losing jobs or facing pay cuts, and most industries are registering severely low conversion rates.
Though it's important to remember that even if customers are not buying right now, they will in the future. You need to modify your brand’s marketing and sales funnel to be ready to accommodate the new reality and the changing needs of the customers.
Start by offering your prospective customers free demos, courses, trials, and sessions. The idea is to provide them with more useful content that can showcase the value of your products. You need to build trust and connect with your target audience to increase brand awareness and value. When customers have all the information they need to make informed purchasing decisions, the conversion rates will automatically go up.
If you are a B2B brand and all of your plans to showcase your products in exhibitions around the world have gone down the drain, conduct virtual exhibitions with 3D walkthrough of your brand booth and products to engage your audience.
4- Adapt to the new normal
Some business leaders and marketers are holding off action, believing that things will eventually go back to normal in a few months or even weeks. But the truth is, we will probably never go back to the normal that we knew.
In fact, scientists believe that social distancing norms will stay in place for as long as 2022. That’s a lot of time to hold off action and not create marketing campaigns. Even if we get through the pandemic successfully, the world and the people in it have changed forever.
Buyer personas, brand messaging, and product strategy will change as well. As a result, only the brands that are capable of adapting to the new normal and create marketing campaigns that align with the changing customer needs will be successful post lockdown.
5- Revamp your brand’s visual identity
COVID-19 is the perfect time to revamp your brand. You will be changing your brand’s messaging anyway, so why not transform the visual identity too to show your customers how much you value their support? You can start by changing the logo and even incorporate new brand colors which can then be used in infographics, social media graphics, and even 3D designs of your products.
6- Save costs wherever you can
Just because you should create a new marketing plan for the post-lockdown era does not mean you should spend all of your expenditure on marketing. It is a difficult time for every business after all. The idea is to save costs wherever you can while still offering your customers the best marketing experience.
Instead of setting up a dedicated marketing team or working with a costly design agency, you can hire an unlimited design service like Prrowess that offers unlimited graphics for a fixed price every month. You work closely with dedicated and experienced graphic designers who can help you out with all your needs. More importantly, with experts already working to create the best graphics for your brand, you can focus more on the core operations of your business during these difficult times.
Final words
COVID-19 crisis has affected many industries and only the companies that reinvent themselves will be able to get through this unscathed. Businesses that fail to reinvent themselves might be removed completely from the market.
The right marketing strategy will be the one that can identify and resolve the new pain points of the customers. Companies need to become more resilience, agile, and flexible to get through this year successfully
Comments