9 Steps to Marketing your Brand out of a Pandemic!
The coronavirus pandemic has changed the way businesses communicate with their target audience. The business environment is uncertain, and brands face a common dilemma: how should a product/service be marketed during these times? In this blog, we’ll discuss the nine steps you can follow to market your brand out of the pandemic. Read on to know more about them.
1. Relook your business and target audience
Take a look at your current business strategy and whether it fits well in the present scenario.
The pandemic gives you the time to consider looking at your brand from different perspectives and how you can change your brand’s communication style or identity, if required. After business operations resume back to normal, businesses are often left with less time to reconsider the brand strategy.
2. Adjust marketing activities according to the scenario
Traditional marketing and online marketing are the two main types of marketing. In the current era, social media marketing can help reach more people than traditional marketing. Statistics show that there are 3.78 billion social media users worldwide, roughly 48% of the population. (Source: Statista) Moreover, content marketing efforts cost 62% less than traditional marketing and generate three times more leads than traditional marketing. (Source: Demand Metric) It may be worthwhile for businesses to start creating an online marketing strategy instead of solely focusing on offline marketing.
Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay
3. Keep customers engaged and add value
Virtually add value to your audience through marketing activities. For example, if you are a finance brand, host finance quizzes or contests. Don’t wait for the pandemic to slow down-simply adapt to social media faster!
4. Show empathy
The coronavirus outbreak is a challenging time for people as they are uncertain about their future. Transform your brand voice and make it optimistic and positive. Give customers the confidence that there will be better times ahead in the future. For example, if people are experiencing stress, a wellness brand can talk about stress relaxation techniques and communicate in a helpful tone of voice.
5. Gear up on communications closer to the launch
During a crisis, marketers tend to cut down on marketing expenditures like Facebook and Instagram advertisements. However, brands need to use this time to work on their aggressive marketing strategies. Marketing campaigns can help brands reach out to a wider audience during a pandemic and increase their visibility.
Image Source: Photo Mix from Pixabay
6. Offer a safe experience and be humane
Avoid formally talking to your customers. Try to initiate a conversation and craft your content marketing strategy in a way that sounds humane. Your customers are experiencing multiple negative emotions during the pandemic. Go for reassuring, inspiring messages, and cut down on monotonous messages regarding products/services and their features. Remember, everyone wants to feel supported during a crisis.
If you have a business offering personalized services, like a parlour or a spa, customers may worry about whether the space is safe. You can talk about the measures you take, like frequent sanitization of a room and mandatory masks for staff at a venue. Moreover, you can share photographs or videos of employees following safety measures to reassure customers that your venue is safe.
7. Create an irresistible offer
Create an irresistible offer to attract your customers. For example, you can level up your branding game by offering discounts or promotional giveaways. Another popular strategy is creating a sense of urgency for the customers. A phrase like, ‘’Buy Now to Receive a 50% Discount” can create this sense of urgency.
8. Study competitors’ strategies
What kind of marketing strategies do your competitors use? Study them to unlock new ideas for your business. With time, you’ll know more about your core strengths and will be able to improve upon your weaknesses in no time. (That’ll surely work great for your brand!)
9. Don’t cut corners (costs)
When you’re restarting your business, don’t make decisions that’ll impact your brand’s visibility. Brands often try to cut costs by reducing the number of marketing initiatives they take.
Even if you’re a small business, you need to ensure that the cut-throat competition in the market isn’t a barrier to your success. Experiment with different techniques like influencer marketing, paid social media advertisements, and print media.
Conclusion
Now that you know how to craft the perfect marketing strategy, it’s time to execute them. If you’re looking for the best social media marketing agency in Delhi to help you with marketing, book a meeting with Brand Catapult.
If you wish to know more about how Brand Catapult can help you grow your business, head over to our services page.