I hope you are doing ok during these uncertain times with so many Irish businesses and employees impacted.
I have noticed in my newsfeed that quite a few businesses have been sending out marketing posts and you as a business owner / marketer might be wondering, is it appropriate to market your business during this stage of the coronavirus crisis? And, if so what are the pitfalls to avoid and what might you focus on.
The first thing is, nobody has experienced anything like this before so it is very difficult to exactly know what to do. I have read lots of articles about this topic over the past week and in this post I am distilling it down into the following advice which I hope will be useful for you.
- Be very mindful and considerate of how most people are feeling. The mood of the nation has changed. It is hugely important to realise that most people are apprehensive. Thousands of Irish companies have closed their doors and hundreds of thousands of employees are unsure when they might be going to back to work. Most people might not be interested in product ads or posts when their real concern is the health and security of their family.
Therefore, within this context …
- Avoid sending out promotional posts or emails that pretend that nothing is happening. A post promoting your product that would have looked perfectly fine 10 days ago might now look like your brand doesn’t understand what people are going through. Therefore, if you have any scheduled posts / tweets or prewritten ads review them and change where appropriate.
- Also, avoid doing anything that might be perceived as capitalizing on a sense of panic or fear.
- Explain to your customers via email and your website how your business is adapting to the new environment and what kind of service they can expect in the coming weeks and months.
- Now is a good time to focus on helping rather than selling. Through social media / email marketing / blog posts you could focus on helping customers and potential customers through this time. If you have skills or knowledge that people will find useful to get them through this period, provide tips and advice that they will find helpful.
What kind of helpful content could you create?
Helpful blog posts on your website that would get found in search engines and would get shared by other people on social media. Ask yourself what information or tools would customers find useful? There are 3 tools that I think could help you with this …
1. Answer The Public https://answerthepublic.com/ This tool will tell you all the questions that people are asking on Google and Youtube. Simply type in a topic and it will show you all the questions. Could you write blog posts or make helpful videos providing free advice and answers?
2. Google Trends https://trends.google.com/trends/?geo=ire This tool tells you what topics and searches are trending on Google and you can check what people in Ireland are searching for.
3. Google keyword planner – This is a free tool within Google Adwords https://ads.google.com/home/ that tells you how many times something is searched for each month in Ireland or within your county and will also show you all the related terms.
Want to read more about how to adapt your marketing? We are keeping a page updated with links to some of the most useful articles being written about how to adapt to this new environment.
Hope you keep safe and well.
All the best
Evan
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