Even when it’s not “business as usual” it’s important to continue to build your brand awareness and maintain long-term relationships with customers so you’re top of mind when they are ready to spend. International public relations and marketing consultancy, Edelman, released a special report surveying how people expected brands to respond to the COVID-19 (coronavirus) crisis, providing critical insights into how small businesses can build their brand and how they should respond to their customers in any kind of crisis.
Tell Customers What They Want to Know
Digital marketing leader Chris Richardson points out that in a crisis every business is desperate to communicate with their customers. “Be conscious that email inboxes and social timelines are flooded,” he says. “I’d be encouraging businesses not to communicate for communication’s sake and instead deliver pertinent information.”
According to Edelman’s “Brand Trust and the Coronavirus Pandemic” report, 88 per cent of people say they want information relevant to them, which means updated opening hours, closures and changes to product and services on your brand’s website, social media and Google My Business listing. “No customer experience is more frustrating than loading up a shopping basket [online] only to discover deliveries are suspended,” says Richardson.
Pivot and Communicate
As people get comfortable in the crisis’ “new normal”, the next step is about transitioning your business’s product and services to create cash flow opportunities – and communicating that. Richardson particularly admires Gelato Messina’s cookie pie giveaway for customers who spent more than $32. “They were inundated,” he says. “They probably had loads of stock. But they pivoted and it blew up on social media.” It drove customer engagement and brand awareness because dessert was relevant for anyone stuck indoors.
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Delay Product Launches
According to the Edelman report, 54 per cent of respondents said they paid no attention to new products immaterial to the times they were living through. “It’s better to go silent rather than actively market products that are not relevant,” says Richardson. This will give your brand time and resources to gear up for the post-crisis recovery phase and build on and communicate your business continuity plan.
Solve Rather Than Sell
Small businesses and brands might be nervous about looking opportunistic when promoting helpful products and services but it’s a matter of positioning. “It’s a difficult and subtle nuance in communication,” says Richardson, whose background is in performance marketing. “It’s positioning the products as there to support customers – as opposed to taking advantage.”
Acknowledge Times of Crisis
It’s unwise to explicitly reference the crisis in every missive but one in three respondents told Edelman they’d punished businesses that weren’t acting appropriately. “If brands are not not tempering their communications to make note of the new normal, that in itself would be really off-putting,” says Richardson. So, for example, during the pandemic rather than a hairdressing salon sending an automated text that a customer is due a service, short-term it should build brand awareness by offering tips and products for at-home styling.
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Be Prepared for Consumer Changes Post-Crisis
Richardson says that during a crisis businesses should prepare for emerging consumer shifts, such as the changing focus around health and wellbeing, digitised socialising, online retail and working from home as a result of the pandemic. “Even if a product’s not positioned for sales right now, it might be for when people start to come out of their homes,” he says.
Be There for Your Customers
Richardson also recommends both extreme empathy and “heightened scrutiny” of any messaging: some customers and employees will be in worse circumstances than you; some will feel more sensitive. But don’t be afraid to engage with information, entertainment and assistance. “You might have experienced it yourself,” says Richardson. “When you feel a bit cut off, if a brand is proactively engaging with you, through caring responses on social media or by inviting customers to share how they’re using products at home or through retweeting posts, it’s a very human instinct to feel recognised and to engage.”
