“You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, 'I have lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.' You must do the thing you think you cannot do.”
― Eleanor Roosevelt
Covid19 has changed the world. I've lived through many transformational changes in the world. 9/11, the fall of Lehman's but they impacted certain countries and certain verticals. Covid19 impacts us all.
My partner an I are in our 4th week of self isolation. I have two elderly parents, that I might not meet again.
What Do We Need To our Sales and Marketing?
- WPP CEO recently said ..
"With Covid19 We Are Seeing 10 Years of Innovation Compressed Into Four Weeks. The Way We Work, Fly, Communicate, Shop, Use Financial Services Will Change.”
It's true.
The first thing we need to do is forget everything we were doing pre Covid19. I'm seeing companies move ahead with content and campaigns that reflected a world in maybe January and February this year, but not the world we all live in right now.
It's just irrelevant. Digital transformation? What meaning does that have it you might not have a company in a few months time.
So, first and foremost, lead with empathy. Mark Schaefer says in this article, in terms of tone "How would you sell to somebody at a funeral?"
So you need to offer help, but you also must not been seen as profiting from this scenario.
Now is the time to drop the jargon and empower your staff to talk on social, in their own, authentic voice.
People want to find and talk to people who understand them, who have the same business issues, these are the people that your prospects and customers will trust.
They will not read a white paper.
They will read an authentic, 300 to 500 word blog from somebody who is just like them. Your staff.
So how do you do this?
First, don't send out an email and expect it to happen.
This program has to come from the leaders, they have to set the tone and direction.
You have to give you team "permission" if they see the leaders exhibiting "good behaviour" then they will follow.
You also have to empower them. This is about giving people the skills you need. Don't forget this is a change of behaviour, while I would love to say a webinar or a masterclass will get the behavior you want. It needs to be subtler than that.
We would recommend that you use an outside company as people tend to listen to independent third parties.
We have all been on "masterclass" courses, where we finish the course and totally ignore what we were told.
This is going to require coaching and mentoring.
Once you have the team writing and creating authentic content, you can "up" your game by suggesting keywords to weave into the materials. This will enable you to have more keyword optimised materials on the web then you could ever dream of. But let's not jump ahead of ourselves here too much.
Of course you need to have the safeguards in place in case anybody makes a mistake. Again, a third party can help you. Social Media, is just like Health and Safety, Inclusion etc, it's right to explain to people, what good and bad behaviour looks like and your expectations.
Difficult times, means you need to look at different methods and with conferences, advertising, cold calling and email looking more and more like the options of yesteryear ..... it's time to do something that meets the current market conditions and will give you the empathy and brand tone you need.
Crises bring change, both temporary and long lasting. Even before COVID-19, the buying process was shifting, the customer experience was changing, and marketing approaches were adapting. The pandemic doesn’t alter those facts, but it does create more urgency to adjust.
https://customerthink.com/shoring-up-your-marketing-strategy-in-turbulent-times/?ct_subscriber=yes
