Tips to manage your marketing throughout COVID-19

These times are unprecedented for businesses, small and large.

However if you think on your feet and react to the emerging news and advice as things evolve, there are opportunities to stay ahead.

1. Communication with customers - how you will be helping and supporting staff: a responsible business is a good business.

2. Update often - reduce ambiguity & over communicate. Fake news and rumours will happen, so stay clear and concise with your comms - and authentic.
   
   

3. Tone of voice - should be clear and empathetic. Be careful if your brand tone is ‘challenger’ - toeing the line between straight talking and flippant.
   
   

4. Communicate & collaborate with your peers in ‘competing’ or complementary businesses - coming together to support, share learnings, challenges and ideas in this time is better than putting the walls up and struggling alone - are there ways that working together might help everyone out? Eg the UK’s major supermarkets coming together to issue the joint letter over the weekend.
   
   
   

5. Encourage & reward loyalty - consider subscription models or vouchers, or forward booking discounts. Who Gives a Crap are prioritising their existing, subscribing customers. Independent businesses in Bristol are offering vouchers to use at a later date to support their cash flow now.
   
   
   

6. Be creative (don’t cynically capitalise). Your audience are - or about to be - spending a lot more time at home, so think about the channels they might be interacting with more than before. How can your brand help in an authentic way? Printable kids activities for example if you're a family brand, tips on self-care if you’re self-isolating if you’re a beauty brand.
   
   
   

7. Stay front of mind - This is the time to invest to keep your content front of mind for your customers. There will be an ‘after’, so staying in your customers’ minds throughout will help your brand in the long-term.
   
   
   

8. Redeploy budget - If your audience are going out less, then consider the marketing channels that might be best placed to maintain your Share of Voice. Paid Search, Paid Social, Organic Social, Video On Demand, YouTube, Display ads and TV advertising. Smart use of outdoor like digital ad vans or bus advertising might be relevant to those where buses route through local communities, or where there is a natural ‘hub’ where people will have to head to buy their essentials.