COVID-19 RELIEF AND RECOVERY
PANDEMIC AND PENDING RECESSION IS A GOOD TIME
FOR SMALL BUSINESSES TO REFOCUS MARKETING STRATEGY
8
TCBusiness.com
Amid unprecedented fear, anxiety and
uncertainty, small businesses might think
it’s time to pause their marketing.
Not so fast.
Marketing and branding experts say this
is the time to strategically continue investing
in marketing, yet the messaging needs
to shift for the coronavirus recession we
are entering.
“Marketing is about meeting your
customer where they are,” said Dan Grech,
founder of BizHack, a Miami-based digital
marketing training academy that trained
more than 100 entrepreneurs last year
in 12-week cohorts. But with COVID-19,
“people now have completely changed
their behavior overnight,” he said. “Your
marketing must change with it.”
Now is not the time for the hard sell.
You need to communicate with customers
in ways that are helpful.
“Businesses not able to do business
right now doesn’t mean you should not be
communicating with your target customers,”
he said. “Think about what they need.”
“Things will come back, but not the way
they were,” said Bruce Turkel, a branding
expert, speaker and author who shared his
thoughts about marketing in recessionary
times.
“Business as usual is now business as
unusual,” he said. “The new normal will
become the normal. What we need to do
right now is to stop worrying and start
planning.”
RECESSIONARY PSYCHOLOGY
Let’s start with a little knowledge of
recession psychology.
During the Great Recession in 2009, Harvard
Business Review published an article
on marketing during a recession.
“Companies that put customer needs
under the microscope, take a scalpel rather
than a cleaver to the marketing budget,
and nimbly adjust strategies, tactics, and
product offerings in response to shifting
demand are more likely than others to
flourish both during and after a recession,”
the article said.
Turkel referred to the research in his
remarks. In recessionary times, you need
to think of your customers among the four
kinds of recessionary buyers: the slam-onthe
brakes consumers who do nothing;
the pained-but-patient group that is
suffering but is generally optimistic; the
comfortably well-off who are selectively
purchasing, in a less conspicuous way; and
the live-for-today group, according to the
review article.
The slam-on-the-brakes folks aren’t your
customers now. The live-for-today folks
will probably buy your product anyway if
they are former customers. Turkel said you
have to focus on your customers in the
two groups in the middle, reconfiguring
your marketing for them.
Small businesses should understand
and assess their products and services,
whether they are essentials it’s not just
the obvious things like food; it’s what is
essential to your customers; treats justifiable
indulgences; postponables; or expendables.
You don’t need to stop offering
postponables or expendables if they are in
your product line, but they are not worth
your marketing attention now.
Then assess your opportunities. Knowing
that distribution vehicles will change,
can your product/service be stabilized or
perhaps flourish? How can you create a
message that offers essentials and justifiable
treats to the people with the money
and need to buy from you? At the same
time, you need to be planning for the long
term.
That’s a tall order when small businesses
are barely holding on. However, Turkel
said, “This may be the best opportunity for
you to show what your brand is about.”
MORE TIPS FROM TURKEL
• A good brand makes people feel
good. But a great brand makes people feel
good about themselves. If you can do that
through the products and services you
offer, you are going to get people to pay
attention.
• As you start marketing to your community,
pay attention to what they are
saying. Pay special attention to the folks
who are not buying yet.
• Be respectful and be consistent in your
messaging. People know you for something,
now is not the time to change that.
Now is the time to double down on who
you are and why you matter — but from
Katherine Culhane’s background includes
a long career in banking including roles in
management, business development, commercial
lending and private banking. She
has a master’s degree in Organizational
Learning and Leadership, is a Certified
Professional Behavioral Analyst and is a
SHRM Senior Certified Professional with
the Society of Human Resources.
your customers’ points of view.
• Stop talking about until things get
back to normal. Successful people understand
how to pivot.
• Use this time now to figure how else
to reach your customers and figure out
new strategies for the short term — and
the long term.
An example he used: A resort, closed by
COVID-19, sent its previous visitors who
have children videos with things to do
with small children and classes for teens.
Its fitness trainers offered online exercise
programs and its chefs sent custom recipes
to customers who sent in the ingredients
in their pantries and refrigerators.
“These things won’t fill hotel rooms now,
but who isn’t going to feel really good
about a company like that?” Turkel asked. >>
BY NANCY DAHLBERG
/TCBusiness.com