Marketing in lockdown
It’s a weird situation we’re in right now: COVID-19, lockdown, people watching Eurovision reruns every weekend... A lot of people aren’t sure what they should be doing with their marketing. And that’s OK!
We’ve done some webinars recently with hints and tips, but if you missed them, here’s what you need to know.
Tone
The tone of your marketing has never been more important. What seemed like a good idea for a campaign a couple of months ago might not be that great anymore. KFC were planning a whole ‘finger lickin’ good’ TV campaign. That’s… been put on hold.
You also don’t want to come across like you’re taking advantage of the crisis. Try to genuinely help your audience rather than going for a hard sell. And if you have loads of images of people shaking hands or in crowds, you might want to give them a rethink.
Also, make your wording different to what other people are sending out. I’ve seen the phrase ‘uncertain times’ many, many times over the last few weeks. Keep it personal and unique.
Communication
It’s likely you’re running your business a little differently now, so you’ll want to make sure your audience is aware. Consider putting a message on every channel you can think of – your shop door, your website, pinned social media posts, Google My Business, email, the works:
- Opening hours (if they’ve changed) or a notice that you’re closed
- What steps you’ve taken to protect staff / your customers
- Preferred ways customers can keep in touch
- Any new services or promotions you’re offering
You don’t necessarily need a single message that does all of those, but they’re the key messages to get across.
Website Notice
On your website, you essentially have two options for your COVID-19 notice:
- A banner
- A popup
A banner is the easiest solution, but be aware that if it’s only on the home page, not everyone will see it. A popup can appear regardless of page and won’t reappear after it’s closed.
Spend
Whether to increase or reduce your marketing spend right now very much depends on your business and how things are going, but one thing everyone should be doing is keeping a close eye on results.
For some clients, we’ve reduced budgets or paused certain aspects of their paid ads, because performance had worsened. For others, we’ve created new campaigns to keep up with rapid changes in demand.
Time
Again, this varies from business to business, but one thing many people have right now is time. It’s a perfect moment to do those things you never get around to.
A few ideas:
- Come up with a new, relevant product or service you can offer
- Update the content on key pages of your website
- Update your blog or case studies
- Set up or improve Google Analytics and/or Google Search Console
- Set up or improve Google My Business
- Work on your SEO e.g. by updating meta tags for pages on the site
- Send out PR to get editorial links from other websites
- Set up or improve your social media profiles
- Do some email or print marketing
- Sell online via sites like Amazon, eBay or Etsy (if you don’t have your own ecommerce site)
Some of these things you can do yourself, for free! Others, you may need a little help with.
As always, we’re here if you need us.
Stay safe.
Want to know more? Get in touch :)
