The global pandemic has disrupted business (and life), and everyone is scrambling to adapt. Marketing is no exception. And it has had to change overnight.
Instead of enticing your buyers with a promise of "better," as you likely did before COVID-19, you now need to do more: You need to make your sales offers far more valuable than they ever have been.
As before, Marketing's charge is to provide buyers relevant information to inform their decisions. Buyers don't want to be sold to, and they won't stand for being barraged with promotional messages. Otherwise, they will tune you out (or shun you altogether).
The solution? Behave as would a caring individual who wants to help others struggling right now: give value, give help. It is the right human response. But how?
An infographic from a revenue performance consultancy LeadMD outlines steps to take, including these three key approaches:
- Make your offers and interactions more human. Think about emotions that customers are likely facing (fear, uncertainty, sadness...). Think about the tough decisions they're facing in their businesses. How can you provide relief and assistance right now? That, and empathetic communication, should be your first priorities.
- Reorganize and reprioritize. Your business has something no one else does, and you need to be able to communicate that to your audience. When you home in on what that is, and you redirect your focus to what you do best and what customers need most, you will deliver maximum value.
- Reforecast for a new version of success. If you haven't been part of a quarterly reforecasting process before, you must start now. Use this resource to determine where your budget should get reallocated so you can be prepared to make changes should they become necessary.
Follow those guidelines and the information in the infographic, and you'll be on your way to increasing the value of your communications and offers.
And doing so will truly help your customers—and help you forge stronger relationships with them.