The pandemic has made it difficult for businesses everywhere to remain afloat, much less grow. New challenges have risen, forcing brands to rethink their approach to advertising and marketing.  

Read on to learn more about the effects of COVID-19 on marketing and how brands can rise above them. 

The Current State of Affairs: Marketing in a Constantly Shifting Landscape

The world is several months into the pandemic, and its effects have already made themselves felt on businesses of all sizes across all industries. 

The International Money Fund forecasts global growth at -4.9%, about 1.9% lower than what was projected in April 2020 by the World Economic Outlook (WEO) forecast. The pandemic’s effects have negatively impacted all sectors worldwide, but some felt the effects more intensely. These include the aviation, retail, and hospitality industries. 

It’s an uncertain time for businesses worldwide. Not only has the pandemic forced changes in how they operate. It has also created a need to re-evaluate and refocus their marketing strategies. 

Going digital

Due to pandemic restrictions and anxiety over their health, consumers are staying home. They have become reliant on online sources for their needs, obtaining everything from groceries to medical care online. The shift to digital has pushed brands to online marketing, with the primary goals of retaining existing customers and maintaining brand awareness.   

With interactions moving to the digital space, businesses make significant changes to how they sustain and grow their brands. Many companies re-evaluate their marketing spend and how they’re utilized, seeking ways to generate continued consumer interest while protecting and even increasing their bottom line. At the same time, they’re beset with challenges unique to or exacerbated by the pandemic situation. 

These challenges include increased competition, heightened attention from governmental agencies that regulate promotions, and a marked change in consumer sentiment and spending habits. 

Conscious consumption

Consumers have become more selective when it comes to how they spend their money. As they try to adapt to the new normal, they’ve shifted their spending mostly to essential items, and as a result, sales of discretionary products have dropped. They’re also choosing to purchase from businesses that provide solutions to concerns involving health and community.

Brands are adapting their messaging and tone to align with the new needs and expectations of consumers. The challenge lies in creating innovative, mindful marketing strategies that promote the purchase of their products or services while maintaining customer loyalty and trust. 

The Effects of COVID-19 on Marketing and Business

In a Bellwethr survey of small business owners in the US conducted in March, 55% of respondents reported that the pandemic harmed their business. 

Half of the companies surveyed also reported having to change their marketing strategy, and 67% are increasing their efforts at customer retention.

The survey respondents also reported difficulties with other aspects of their operations. Of the 400 businesses surveyed, more than half had employees who were unable to work. Meanwhile, 42.8% experienced delays in supply chain processes. 

However, despite decreased sales and revenue, businesses do not appear to be reducing their marketing spend. On the contrary, they realize the value of marketing in preventing further losses and supporting future gains. A CMO Survey conducted in June by Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business found that marketing spends as a percentage of US businesses’ budgets increased from 11.3% in January to 12.6% in May.  

How Brands can Manage the Impact of COVID-19

The following are some marketing best practices for brands to help them mitigate the pandemic’s harmful effects. 

Stay connected 

With most of the world staying at home either due to shelter-at-home orders or their personal choice, it’s up to businesses to meet consumers where they’re at: online. Data from a Pew Research report shows that half of American adults find the internet essential during the pandemic.   

Businesses should provide regular, consistent messaging to their customers on their website and social media accounts. A priority should be delivering useful information about pandemic-driven changes to business operations, such as new hours and updated services like curbside delivery and shipping. 

According to research by McKinsey, consumers buy more from companies that demonstrate concern for their employees. Businesses can reassure their customers by telling them what measures they’ve put in place to ensure their safety and well-being and that of their workers.

Consumers are now, more than ever, looking for brands they can trust and whose values align with theirs. Brands must deliver on their values and be empathetic when communicating with customers. Many customers are looking for stability and comfort in these uncertain times, and the right messaging can provide them with just that.  

Leverage high-quality content

Quality content is the workhorse of digital marketing—it allows brands to educate, entertain, and engage with consumers. It builds a brand’s online reputation and establishes it as a thought leader in its industry, which helps build brand awareness and trust.  

Consistently producing and publishing high-quality content boosts traffic to a brand’s website and social media pages. Doing so helps generate leads and improve conversion rates.

The coronavirus is a very topical subject, and brands can up their visibility by posting content relevant to their business and the pandemic situation. COVID-19-related content is likely to get more shares, likes, and reposts than evergreen topics.

However, when creating pandemic-related content, it is essential to adopt the right tone. Brands must focus on being empathetic and providing real solutions. They must be careful not to be perceived as taking advantage of the situation; otherwise, their reputation may become damaged. 

To streamline their content marketing efforts, brands should consider using CoSchedule, Contently, and SEMRush. These can prove useful to businesses who wish to optimize all stages of their content marketing workflow, from creating a strategy to distributing content.

Listen to customers and provide solutions

According to a report by Gladly, consumers are increasingly demanding the ability to communicate with businesses on their preferred channels. 30% of those polled stated that being able to choose channels helped make a great customer experience.   

To ensure a positive customer service experience, businesses should let their customers know that they are ready to provide timely support. Companies should respond promptly through all of the communication channels, be it phone, email, or social media.  

While bots and FAQs are helpful self-service options, they do not impart the warmth and empathy that consumers are looking for in these challenging times. Now more than ever, it’s vital for brands to show their customers that they care and are happy to provide solutions tailored to their needs. 

The same Gladly report found that 77% of consumers would continue patronizing a business that provides excellent customer service. This data suggests that a caring and personalized approach can help boost customer loyalty. This, in turn, has a positive impact on profits. Research by Bain & Company shows that just a 5% increase in customer retention can boost ROI by 25% to 95%.

Tips on marketing during the pandemic

Brands must employ a balancing act when marketing during these uncertain times. Advertising and marketing strategies must take into account the current situation and changed customer attitudes and needs. 

At the same time, brands must ensure that their materials comply with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and other organizations are cracking down on deceptive or abusive advertising and marketing practices and penalizing businesses that are taking advantage of the pandemic situation. 

Here are some ways businesses can address these challenges and market effectively amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Cut through the noise with influencer marketing

At the beginning of the pandemic, industry experts’ prevailing view was that COVID-19 would make influencer marketing fall in popularity. Many articles discussed challenges such as reduced marketing budgets and a suddenly-crowded digital marketing environment. 

Another concern was the ability of influencers to produce compelling content amidst shelter-in-place orders. Early forecasts echoed this sentiment, predicting that influencer marketing would drop as a result of the pandemic. 

Contrary to expectations, influencers were able to adapt quickly. Unhampered by decreased mobility, influencers began producing creative content at home. 

A consumer survey commissioned by Matter Communications shows that the year’s challenges have opened up influencer marketing opportunities. About 58% of consumers surveyed reported noticing more influencers, while 51% had positive attitudes to influencer content. 

Businesses should consider allocating a portion of their marketing budget to influencer marketing. Meanwhile, they should also take steps to protect themselves from legal problems that could hamper their marketing efforts. These problems can arise from non-compliance with guidelines set by the FTC and other consumer protection organizations. 

One way brands can ensure compliance is by creating clear disclosure statements and complying with endorsement guidelines. Incorporating disclosure language into promotional materials helps ensure that consumers know an influencer’s relationship with a brand. 

The FTC released a comprehensive guide that describes the disclosure requirements that apply to endorsements made on social media. It includes tips for influencers and brands on creating disclosure messaging that is clear and effective. 

Hold giveaways and sweepstakes

Online sweepstakes, giveaways, and similar promotional events are effective marketing tools. However, many businesses are understandably hesitant about launching contests amidst the pandemic, fearing that they may appear insensitive to the current situation. Also, these types of promotions are highly regulated.  

However, sweepstakes and giveaways—when done correctly and in compliance with applicable laws—allow businesses to engage with their customers in meaningful ways. They increase brand visibility, boost social media engagement, and generate leads.

Collaborative promotional activities, such as photo contests and karaoke competitions, provide consumers with a much-needed distraction from the pandemic’s grim realities. 

Meanwhile, sweepstakes and giveaways with a charitable element make customers feel good about supporting the business behind them, thus boosting brand loyalty. 

Utilize gift card marketing

Gift cards have been a popular marketing tool for years, and businesses are finding new value in them during the pandemic. 

With lockdown orders in many areas, fewer consumers are venturing outside their homes to visit retailers, restaurants, and other brick-and-mortar businesses. By selling gift cards, companies boost their cash flow at a time when business is slow. 

At the same time, gift cards increase brand awareness. By selling gift cards for future use, businesses ensure that customers will remember and visit them when lockdown restrictions have been lifted. 

Partner with a charity or support a cause

According to research by Edelman, 64% of consumers expect brands to take a larger role in society, while 67% agree that trust is a factor in their purchase decisions. A cause marketing campaign can help brands achieve their business goals while supporting causes that are important to their audience and contribute to society’s betterment. It allows them to meet a critical need in a time of crisis, and it empowers businesses to demonstrate their commitment to their communities, which builds customer trust. 

Investing in cause marketing will benefit brands in the future. When the COVID-19 crisis is over, consumers are more likely to remember and prefer purchasing from businesses who took action to the pandemic over those that didn’t. 

Conclusion 

It is unlikely for the marketing landscape to “go back to normal” any time soon. As such, businesses should avoid a wait-and-see approach. For them to survive and even thrive in the pandemic, they must be proactive and agile. Companies must anticipate and respond to challenges quickly and recalibrate their marketing operations approach when needed. By doing so, they build and sustain their brand equity and attract and retain customers, thus improving their bottom line. 

What strategies is your business implementing to stay on top of changes in the marketing environment?

The post Marketing in a State of Flux: How Brands Can Thrive Despite the Pandemic appeared first on SiteProNews.

It’s not a good idea to alienate whoever has the money, especially since the point of having a business is to earn money in the first place. That alienation boils down to customers not getting what they want, plain and simple. If they don’t see what they want from your business, they won’t buy anything.

The act of listening is the one thing businesses must constantly do in order to stave off malaise and decline.

Reasons Why You Should Always Listen to Your Customers

1. Customer Like to Feel Valued

If you listen closely to customers, especially those loyal to your business, they will appreciate how they’re being seen as actual human beings whose input is actually valuable instead of simply being disembodied shapes who simply fork over their money. A handful of loyal customers who care are worth more than a million customers who could care less.

2. Customer Have the Buying Power

Customers can say a lot of things, but what talks loudest is their money. They vote with their wallets, and you should be aware of whatever is making that money roll in. Your actions should then reflect that awareness, from your marketing to the products being sold and how  customers are treated.

3. Listening Can Help Grow Business

A business that doesn’t get with the times and listen to customers is like the dead air in an empty room with nothing to stir it. If cash is oxygen for businesses, then feedback is nourishment.

The ways for a business to listen are numerous—surveys, feedback forms, reviews, focus sessions, and so on. However, the old-fashioned method of talking to customers and listening to what they have to say on a day-to-day basis is still hard to beat.

4. It Can Help Improve Customer Retention

Since customers tend to appreciate businesses that listen so much, you can expect them to stick around when their demands are satisfied and their feedback is taken seriously. Customer retention is all about the business being a two-way street, and the key to building that business-customer relationship is reciprocation.

By regularly taking feedback from customers, you keep a finger on the pulse that keeps your business going. Frustration and dissatisfaction from customers, or simply them finding a better deal elsewhere, should be taken as signals and clues to whatever may be improved.

5. Customers Hold the Key to Success

It goes without saying that customers are the main reason behind a business’ success. Their money is the reason why your business exists, and their collective voice can even tell the future. Finding ways to take feedback more easily can be challenging for some, but it’s an effort worth pursuing.

Tried and Tested Tips You Must Implement as a Business

1. Build Trust with Your Customers

Trust is all about knowing the other party has nothing to hide and always has best intentions in mind. For businesses, transparency is the key here. Being able to show customers you’re not afraid of feedback is a tremendous way to build trust, and a good way to do that is through reviews.

You get feedback from customers, and other customers get to see that feedback. The latter, when you’re getting positive reviews, helps convince customers of how good your business really is. When other customers say you’re good instead of just you saying it, that comes off as way more convincing.

2. Make Good Use of Chat

Direct interaction with customers is the best way to listen to them. For online businesses, that pretty much means chat. There’s a good chance many of you reading this right now already have that as a part of your ventures, but you may want to take things further by putting more thought into it.

Chatbots were a topic of discussion for quite a while before seeing wider implementation. They had a lot of potential, and automation had already been a thing for a good while by then. Plenty of businesses have implemented chatbots with much success. Examples include Winnie, RapidMiner, Instant Translator, RewardStream, MyWorkout, and others.

The limitations of chatbots, no matter how “smart” they claim to be, only prove that live chat is still the most effective way to interact with customers and provide service to them aside from doing so face to face. With live chat, there’s no need to split test in order to bring conversions up. You can then employ old-fashioned sales with use of technology to do business.

3. Use Feedback as Point of Conversation

Staying in touch with customers regularly can be quite helpful, although being able to open up a conversation with them may not be that easy. You wouldn’t want to be seen spaming. Social media does make it easier to engage with customers, especially when they’re getting in touch with you through comment, chat, or private message to issue a complaint or giving feedback.

This is an opportunity to collect data from them, so you can follow up the conversation by asking a question regarding how they like your business or how it can can be improved or changed. You may also want to try making use of pop-ups, as long as you’re not using them too much. In any case, these methods may be used to open up conversations with customers.

4. Customer Feedback Survey

You are looking to do six things while creating a survey for customer feedback. It’s assumed that you already have a purpose for the survey figured out at this point.  First is to come up with a compelling title that reflects the purpose of the survey. You then have to determine who you want to respond to the survey.

With that said, you must come up with the right questions to get the answers you need. Once you’ve sent out your survey and there are people answering it, you should track the feedback and extract the useful data from it.

If you employ email marketing, then you can ask those in your mailing list to answer your survey. You can include a promotional code as thanks, as well as include an advocacy program and a contest to make it more enticing.

5. Consider the Customers’ Voice to Market Your Products

Coming up with the perfect copy for your website can seem almost impossible since it seems like you have to read minds to come up with something that actually works. This is where feedback comes in handy, letting you understand how your customers are. When you know your customers, you can then get a gist of what voice works for them. From the kind of words they tend to use, to the tone they exude, you can then tailor the copy to suit their voice.

In market research, there’s a technique used to pinpoint customers’ wants and needs. It’s called the voice of customer—or VOC. It’s an actionable data point that can let you learn what your customers specifically want, as well as pain points, preferences, trigger words, FUDs, and other details that can help you hone in on how you can exactly speak to them through your marketing.

An optimal way to hone in on VOC for your business would be to have an on-site survey containing 3-4 questions, a post-purchase survey that customers can optionally take to gauge their experience; active data-gathering on the top 10 or 15 complaints, questions, and comments from customer service; interviews with regular customers on their experiences and why they come back for repeat business; and just listening to the chatter.

6. Include Customer Reviews

Enabling and showing customer reviews is an often-made recommendation in ecommerce mainly because reviews instill trust and ultimately entice customers to buy a positively-reviewed product. Customer reviews are perhaps the most effective method of increasing conversions in ecommerce business, and it’s also the most common way to get feedback from customers.

When you have the option of leaving customer reviews enabled in your website, it invites users to leave their thoughts on a certain product. The website then becomes more trusted as a result of customer feedback being treated transparently.

Regularly adding fresh and unique content is also great for boosting your site’s SEO, improving your search rankings for the product being reviewed and increasing the clickthrough rate as a result of the site becoming more interesting.

7. Customer Testimonials

About 9 out of 10 customers read reviews and testimonials when deciding to purchase a product, trusting them as much as they would personal recommendations. Most would come to trust a business that has real customer testimonials since it indicates that the business has nothing to hide.

Customer testimonials aren’t just about increasing conversion rates, traffic, product insights, or so on through numbers. It’s mostly about interaction and the power of social proof, which is not easily reflected by mere numbers.

8. Fair and Comprehensive Return Policy

Few things say a business cares for its customers more than a good return policy. Ending up with products that may have defects or damage through delivery is sometimes unavoidable, so you have to give customers a way to not make them regret their purchase by giving them a chance to return that product and get either a replacement or a refund. You have to let people know your business is virtually risk-free.

A good return policy is built around convenience. There has to be little to no obstacle between them and having their products returned for either a replacement or refund. You should give them an easy way to contact you regarding the return of a product, as well as ample time to decide and act on it.

Conclusion

As you can see, there are many ways to listen to your customers to know what they want. While you may be spoiled for choice with these various methods, do remember the simplest and still the most effective way to listen— is talking to them. You need to address them in your own voice to be able to connect with them as much as you possibly can.

A concerted effort to listen to customers will eventually be noticed, which can then lead to appreciation for earnest effort and more communication that can benefit your business. Making it easier for your customers to speak their mind should also go a long way to making your business as open as it can be to feedback.

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