2020 will go down as the weirdest and most disruptive year for business in recent history. Organizational leaders and business owners are managing massive changes and looking at scenarios that seem to alter on a weekly basis. While many are looking to completely revamp their marketing strategy, mostly everyone is looking to modify their marketing plan and budget for the rest of the year. We’ve put together some practical ideas for getting your marketing going in the coming months. 

 1. Take Care of Your Customers

Communicating with your customers is more important than ever. Take a proactive approach and let them know how your organization is dealing with reopening, how you are adapting to keep your employees and customers safe, and how you can continue to provide them with phenomenal products and services. Be available to help them solve their problems in any way that you can and communicate that over and over again. Avoid clichés and overused statements and focus on being sincere and authentic.

Even with a thinning budget, figure out creative ways to provide extra value and strengthen relationships. If you take a true customer-centered approach you will strengthen the value of your brand with your clients.

2. Don’t Bury Your Head in the Sand

If your organization has suffered severe disruption, it is not the time to be paralyzed with fear over your marketing. Even now, we’re working with clients on new marketing strategies and tactics to help them take advantage of the current situation while also identifying future opportunities. For many of our clients, that means developing webinars, creating social media web videos, updating neglected websites, designing digital advertisements, and implementing automated marketing and email marketing campaigns.

3. Develop the Right Messaging

We are not at all advocating for changing your corporate identity or engaging in sleazy marketing tactics, we are suggesting it is time (for most organizations) to develop clear messaging about your differentiating factor and unique value. We’ve implemented this principle ourselves by developing a new website that more accurately communicates the problems we can solve for certain clients and beginning inbound marketing practices and digital advertising for the first time in our company’s history. It’s important that your marketing quickly and concisely tells people who you are, what you do, and why they should care.

4. Take Advantage of Free Marketing Platforms

If your organization has not taken a massive hit during this pandemic, you should be investing even more money in your marketing. Research has shown that this tactic yields success during economic downturns. But if you need to tighten your marketing budget there may be free marketing tools that you can utilize while you get your organization back on its feet.

• Canva is a free graphic design solution that you can use to design social media graphics, posters, and more.
• Unsplash and Pexels are great resources for free professional photographs you can use on social media and your website.
• Vidyard allows you to set up a free account to create videos for your marketing.

We are months into a worldwide pandemic, and there are still many unknowns. But, two things are certain:

1. Most businesses need to adjust their marketing strategy to endure, and
2. Digital marketing is the key to making that transition successful.

It’s common to put more pressure on marketing during a recession. Expectations are that it will achieve more with fewer resources while still providing a high return on investment. While this is possible, under current conditions it requires reallocating marketing dollars to digital marketing tactics. An article from Forbes says it best:

“We are in uncertain times, but with the increase of remote working and a collaborative approach, companies are turning to digital channels and embracing the transformation. We have seen a real spike during the last few weeks from companies wishing to create or update websites, launch new eCommerce channels and create social media campaigns focused on home-workers and a real focus on using influencers and SEO to reach new audiences.”

For businesses that have been slow to transition from traditional to digital marketing, time is running out. Some businesses have transitioned their budgets to include digital channels. But, they can gain valuable market share by accelerating that transition and fully embracing a digital strategy. As we’ve previously discussed, businesses that maintained or increased their advertising budgets during a recession actually received positive results in the marketplace.

Real-World Cases of Digital Pivots

CASE STUDY 1: In-Face to Internet

In the pre-coronavirus world, one of our technology clients relied heavily on trade shows and other events to generate leads. When that channel disappeared under social distancing restrictions, we realigned their budget to establish an automated marketing program coupled with a digital and retargeting advertising program. Working with their sales and marketing department, we developed a strategy to digitally educate their target audience on the problems the company solves, drive online demos signups, and retarget website visitors with advertisements to drive them back to the client’s website.

CASE STUDY 2: Social Presence to Social Powerhouse

For one of our municipality clients, we were consistently creating social media content that produced impressive engagement numbers with their audience. However, their audience size was stagnating. So, we worked with them to create a social media advertising plan and budget that included boosting posts, social media ads, and interacting more with followers. Over the course of just a few months, their social media account likes grew by thousands.

 CASE STUDY 3: Advisors to Advisees

It’s not only our clients that needed to reassess their marketing strategy as a result of the pandemic. We also took the opportunity to change our own strategy. We developed a new website with messaging and information targeted to our ideal client personas. The website is also optimized to work with marketing automation and digital advertising programs that we are currently developing.

It’s decision time for many businesses, especially when it comes to marketing budgets. Businesses that down-size their marketing and advertising budgets in reaction to current social and economic conditions are in danger of losing a significant amount of business. Or, worse yet, losing their business entirely. Those that adjust their strategy, invest in developing a strategic marketing plan, and transfer their marketing and advertising dollars to digital will have a significantly better chance for success in the year ahead.

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