Marketing after COVID:

At present, the world is a lot different than a lot of us could have ever imagined back in January. Social distancing is a normal part of life, masks are a must and working from home has gone from a privilege to a necessity.

Marketing companies and brands need to have a plan in place to ease things back into the normal swing of things. The question is, do you pretend that nothing happened, do you keep talking about Covid-19 or do you find some kind of balance?

Here are a few things to think about as the world looks forward to normality…

Have a plan in place

Now that your other business operations may have slowed down, the time is right to put together a far-reaching plan for your own communications.

You’re going to want to be ready to hit the ground running once normal client work continues, making sure that both your business and their brand are ready to ease back into things. The trick here is to gradually bring things back and acknowledge the circumstances without focusing on them too much.

Take a close look at your data

Chances are that you have more information about your clients and leads than you might think. Take a deep dive into your website analytics and the general approach you’re taking for leads. Make a list of those that went cold and make a plan to get in touch again. For leads that were warm before Covid-19 (but went cold), get in touch to say hello and find out what their post-Covid plans are.

Evaluate your assets

This is also a great time to take stock of all of the marketing assets of you and your clients. Look at things such as video, social, digital, print and other possible media to see which ones have been working in the past, and which ones you might want to drop in favour of more effective methods. From here, you’ll be in a much better place to hit those marketing goals once the world goes back to work.

Review your website

As a marketer, you’re often spending more time looking after client websites than you are your own. If they have reduced their operations, this is a good chance to take a look at your own backyard and give things a bit of love. Update your blogs, prepare future pieces, update plugins, and tweak pages. If you’re stuck for ideas, take a look at competitor websites to see what they’re doing and see if you get inspired.

How are your reviews looking?

Use the downtime to create a campaign to increase and improve reviews for your business, or for your clients. Formulate a plan to get in touch with customers and ask them to write and post Google reviews. Not only will this help with your online visibility, but it’ll show the business in a great light with the chance to reply to any negative sentiments.

Shoot some pics and videos

This is the perfect time to do a photo or video shoot because photographers are likely to be less busy and may be able to offer you a really competitive price. You can then reform and reshape the content to go through social channels and your newly updated website.

While you might feel like you’re taking advantage of the lower prices, remember that you’re also providing income. Both parties benefit.

Re-energise your outreach

The way that you or your clients have communicated with customers during the Covid-19 crisis depends on the nature of the business, and how communications have run so far.

If there has already been a strategy running, make sure to keep it as active as possible without stepping over the line. As mentioned before, try to avoid too many Covid-19 messages, especially if you are offering promotions or sales. Instead, try to position your communications as being helpful.

Make it a team effort

Talk with your clients and internal teams about what they think the best approach would be. Even if they don’t work in a marketing capacity, they may have seen something that impressed them, or they might want to push a certain topic ahead.

You can use conference software such as Zoom or Microsoft Teams to get people together for a virtual brainstorm.

See you soon!

So there are a few things to think about in the weeks and months leading up to normality. The main thing here is to look forward to bringing you and your clients back into the fold in a smooth and smart way. See you there!