31 Mar Marketing in Crisis Mode

5 tips for content marketing during a crisis from 5 Tool Productions on Vimeo.

Just about every media outlet is talking about the current situation. Businesses large and small are all being affected. While you may be looking at your books non stop trying to figure how much time you have left, there are a few things you should and shouldn’t be doing from a marketing perspective.

Here are a few notes from the video above:

• Press pause on your automation
  • • Make sure you have a good hold on what is going out, especially something automated. I personally received an abandoned cart message that said “whats the matter did life get in the way?” Well, yeah for the entire general population, it kinda did. Make sure you have the chance to go through the messages you have going out and that something can’t be taken the wrong way given the circumstances.
• Should you still try to sell?
  • • When I say that, I mean actually care. This is not the time for a hard sell. You still have to remember what’s going on in the world. People are thinking about their mortgage, childcare, pet meds, and most likely not your product. You aren’t going to be able to force feed someone something. Ask them how they are doing. Let them know you’re here for them and if you’re running some content make it educational. At the end of the day this isn’t B2B or B2C, this is person to person marketing. You have to humanize it.
• It’s OK to spend on advertising
  • • I heard the analogy yesterday while recording a podcast. The person I interviewed asked is it better to buy stocks when they’re high and everyone is trying to get in or when things are low? You can look at this situation as an opportunity for your business. Obviously don’t put yourself out of business but when it comes to digital a little spend goes a long way. People are absolutely craving interaction and content. Local TV stations are seeing record numbers and web traffic is up. Facebook just said that some of the countries that have been hit the hardest are seeing messaging increase by more than 50%, traffic to their voice and video calling apps double.
• Interact with your audience
• • • Obviously being a production company we have to talk about video. But seriously live video is HUGE right now. Just think about the amount of zoom hangouts you’re seeing right now. Have a hangout with employees, talk to customers, talk about the industry, this is your chance to humanize your brand and there’s no better way to do it than putting yourself out there on live video.
• Know who you are, what you stand for, and why you exist
  • • What was the original mission statement of the company don’t stray from that