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There hasn’t been any time in recent history where an event has made serious threats to the business. The global and national markets have taken a hit and millions of businesses are facing the test of time due to the Corona pandemic. Even if it perishes anytime soon (hopefully), the ripples of the situation will take time to settle down. Every marketer needs to face this as there is no other option, which indeed marks the importance of having an adaptive marketing strategy.

The thumb rule of marketing is to find opportunities in every crisis. In the case of Corona, every marketer fears to approach the situation just because the challenge is a new one. It has no past records or statistics to show how the market responded. They are cautiously approaching the tide because, in the end, all of them must prepare the business for longer hauls. So in the first place, we need to define what would be the possible challenges for marketers.

Surging online sales

• Since public gatherings are not possible due to the virus threat, businesses, especially the B2B companies, are forced to cancel their trade shows, conferences, and other business events. Without these events, these firms will struggle to maintain and nurture customer relationships. Hence they will be forced to turn digital. However, the real challenge lies in the entry-level brands which need to establish themselves with the digital medium quickly. As a marketer how will you script the strategy for achieving this?

Marketing models

• The main challenge, of course for the marketers is to facelift the ongoing marketing models. Either you can follow a mixed modeling approach or custom tailor something that keeps the business ticking. The customer patterns have changed and processes to access real-time data are pivotal for gaining insights. Hence, it’s time to modify the marketing models.

Customer mobility

• Customer mobility has been taking a hit and hence the buying patterns and consumption habits will change. The productivity will slam down, the supply chains need to be evolved and everything needs to be foreseen while curating a marketing plan for the customer. Their consumption habits will evolve constantly, paving the way to the drastic changes in the strategies.

Based on these evolving changes in the marketing peripheral, let us see what will be some of the ideal shifts that will happen in and across the business world to cope with the pandemic.

• More investments will be directed toward marketing tactics to drive online sales.

• Reducing budget allocations for sales campaigns with longer durations and focusing on shorter business achievements.

• Marketers are more likely to keep the brand campaigns live to streamline the market presence.

• Making investments towards delivering your products and services to homes or other target social institutions.

• Taking the spotlight away from the premium products and shifting the focus to entry-level or everyday essential products.

• Plan to redeploy the budget that was allocated for large mass events like the Olympics since they were called off.

• Changes in media supply and demand will force marketers to manage their spends more on the digital versions and reduce the spending areas on print mediums with new cost levels.

• Track data in local geographies that are expected to witness varying levels of impacts due to the pandemic.

• Using trends, social sentiments and google query volume on relevant keywords as indicators to inform valuable insights on marketing actions.

• Building in quick response learnings to optimize marketing budgets and transfer learnings across markets.

• Measurement of custom creative content addressing the virus, giving awareness about the measures and conveying the brand positioning in the issue.

While we have seen the possible shifts, now it’s time to fix the approach and objectives right. The all-time objective of marketing is pretty simple and defined. Brands need to retain their customer base, achieve more visibility in front of the target audience, keep their focus high on driving conversations and engaging audiences. Hence your approach and strategies should be constantly monitored, measured and moreover tested timely to understand the strategy patterns and how it is addressing the needs of the buyer in order to stay upright as a brand.

Corona has opened up a lot of new challenges for marketing your brand. At the same time, it has also opened up new opportunities to secure your brand. Get in touch with OnPageOne for getting expert marketing strategies that will help your brand stay ahead during these testing times.