Change, Communications and the Corona Challenge
How quickly things can change.
One minute you’re making marketing plans to grow and develop your offering based on knowledge, intelligence and experiences you’ve established over a period of time, the next you’re contemplating watching the business you’ve built up with your heart and soul disappear in a matter of days or weeks.
It’s an overwhelming time for many with significant changes afoot. Feelings of anxiety and stress are understandably being felt by people working in all sectors and industries, but this can make it difficult to think rationally. Business Psychologist, Charlotte Armitage shares some useful tips on how to manage this and help business owners begin to think clearly about the challenges ahead.
For the majority of businesses, the Coronavirus pandemic will mean adapting your existing services to suit the ever-changing needs and demands of clients. This is already been seen across the country with:
- Restaurants and bars offering takeaway and delivery services
- Manufacturers diversifying into new markets
- Face to face services moved online
- Businesses stocking new and additional products
For some organisations, this will lead to huge opportunities and even increases in revenue. However, for others, it will be a means of desperate survival for the foreseeable future, with some casualties inevitable as cash reserves are depleted at an alarming rate.
What content to communicate
Whichever camp you fall into, now more than ever it’s important to communicate with your audiences with the right messages through the right marketing channels. Whether it’s through social media, digital, PR, email or direct marketing, TV, print or radio advertising, you can keep your customers, suppliers, clients and colleagues updated, informed, educated and entertained through a variety of means. The same pre-CV (Coronavirus) principles apply in terms of making sure your communications have a clear purpose and objective. You could end up with a lot of unsubscribers and switched off customers with irrelevant and spam-like communications at a time when tolerance and stress levels are being stretched.
Think about how you can help serve your customers in this time. Some content ideas include sharing:
- Useful advice and tips through blogs and social posts
- Stories of success, inspiration and positivity with PR
- Interactive webinars or vlogs to reach specific markets
- Relevant deals or offers customers can enjoy now or pay forward to enjoy in the future
Which communication channels to use
It’s important to review your communication channels to look at what will be the most effective at this time. Out of home advertising in some cases will be virtually redundant for the next few weeks as the nation self isolates. However, the effectiveness of video content has the potential to increase hugely with more people confined to their homes.
In a time of such uncertainty, clear, honest and relevant messaging will be appreciated more than ever. There’s still a place for creative communications with people welcoming positive news and light relief but be conscious of the tone and what’s appropriate. Many will be sensitive to messaging that appears to be exploiting others or taking advantage of people’s dire situations.
Taking on the Corona challenge
We’ve probably all experienced challenging times at some point in our lives, whether personally or professionally and come through it the other side, sometimes for the better. The Coronavirus is one mother of a challenge for us all but I’m optimistic this unforeseen situation will forge new opportunities, relationships, creative thinking, ways of working and servicing customers needs. It’s a cliché but when one door closes, another one inevitably opens and it’s important to remain positive and pro-active.
Working together we will get through this time and people will start to get back to a semblance of normality. However it is to be expected there will be fundamental changes in consumer behaviours and demands that will have a lasting impact on business long after this crisis has ended, and it will be the businesses that managed to adapt and stay present and relevant in people’s minds will reap the benefits and rewards post Covid-19.