Marketing in a Covid World

What Should Your Business Do Now?

Like you, we are fed up with all the “Debby Downer” articles rehashing the negative economic effects of Covid-19. We all get it already! How about some real help! Let’s give you valuable and usable information on the best things to do and when to do them. Let’s get lift under your wings!

Where to Start

Reach out to your established core customers. These are your regulars; your reliable ongoing shoppers-- the 20% who made up 80% of your revenue. They are consistent in how many times they come to you and their average spend. BEST METHODS: Use database marketing and send out e-blasts to devices and send SMS texts to cells. This is inexpensive and highly effective. Announce 3 key attributes, no more than 3. You’re preaching to the choir so don’t make the mistake of talking to them as if they are new to you:

Examples for loyal customers:

  • Familiar faces in your favorite place
or:
  • Back and safer than ever
  • Still together with you
  • Family is forever
  • Same great place you love
  • Lost together. Found again.
  • Service with a smile! (superimpose this sell line on a headshot mask of a long-term employee)
  • We’ve been waiting for you with fresh … (stock)
  • Helping you with lowered prices

Expand Who You Are Targeting To

Expand your customer base by mirroring people similar to your best customers and get messages to them. At this stage, remember your competitor's customers are in this bucket as well, so go for them. During the lockdown brand loyalty eroded and buying patterns dramatically disrupted. This is your rare golden opportunity to win on two major battlefronts! BEST METHODS: Determine the characteristics of your key customers: their income, age, employment, family size and connections, values, lifestyles, product use, and most importantly, the avenues best used to most easily, economically, and effectively reach them. This will typically mean you should use digital banner ads, social media marketing, and pay per click.

Consider Traditional Marketing Campaigns

Begin selecting and using traditional media you have found most effective in the past if they appear to be still relevant today. Be mindful to select media that reaches the most people best able to use and afford your product and services. Memorably engage customers with effective messaging. If messaging does not cause old customers to come in more often or cause new customers to sample you, the effort is probably not effective. BEST METHODS: Correctly determine the value the media has to you in regard to how your customers use it; meaning how often and how long do people engage with it. The credibility it has with them. The pathways you can use to cut through the inherent clutter and distractions it may have and to make yourself stand out. Abandon the media pitfall of “measuring results” at the expense of not doing a media mix. You cannot afford to put all your eggs in one basket…on one media. Use a smart variety of media at the same time. The best measurement of media effectiveness is your revenue, both in the bottom-line total and in the size of average transactions. We’re glad to do a deeper analysis of other measurement paradigms.

Experiment With New Ideas

There is no better time than now to experiment with alternative or different marketing than you used in the past. Think of it like seeing your old neighborhood and town after the waters of a thousand-year flood have receded. Nothing is where it was. Old places are gone. The landscape is flattened. Different things now work differently, so try them out. Judiciously spend a portion of marketing on experimental new tactics. BEST METHODS: Never foolishly, but wisely assess salespeople and marketing or advertising products you might not have seriously entertained in the past. They are now pertinent. Look at them and think about it. Bravely make a calculated risk.

Remember A Few Basics:

With “new media” like e-blasts and social do not wear out your welcome by over-communicating. If you send something out every single week, people will grow tired of the constant knocking and will close their doors to you. Balance the contact content of your messages at a 3 or 4 ratio of information or entertainment to 1 part selling your product and services. Traditional media is different. Be sure you immediately get peoples’ attention, be sure to tell them what’s in it for them, and for god’s sake, tell them what to do…have a call to action. Lastly, please remember, knowledge alone is not power. The use of knowledge is power. It is not about what we know; it is about what we do. Or as grandpappy said: “It ain’t what you know; it’s what you do!” We’re always available to work with and to help you. Click here to contact NoticeU Marketing