Marketing Planning for Your Big Comeback During Covid-19

Time to Start Putting Together Your Business’s Plan for Your “Grand Re-Opening Event”

Could you reopen much earlier than expected? While we all recognize that the timing of businesses reopening during the coronavirus pandemic will be based on a variety of factors, most believe that it will start to happen earlier than anticipated. So without a crystal ball on the exact date for your; industry, state or local market, our first recommendation is, “be prepared”.

If you’ve closed temporarily or reduced your staff and hours significantly, you’re probably already trying to figure out when you can return to normal business operations. But how do you know when you’ll be allowed to reopen and more importantly, how will you go about your business’s “big comeback”?

You’ve probably scaled back your advertising efforts, which is understandable, however, you shouldn’t have stopped marketing completely. Why? There are a variety of reasons to not stop direct marketing, the biggest of them being that consumers are spending even more time at home online surfing, on social media and checking their mailboxes – it’s the perfect time to market to them and let them know that your business is still serving your customers. With more decision makers at home, reaching out with a direct mail campaign can deliver more impressions and generate higher response.

To position your business effectively for when the time is right, we’ve developed the following planning guide. We can help you address these critical steps:

Top 3 Planning Priorities

Pull Your Existing Customer List

While your business may have slowed and there’s a few calm moments, take some time and review your existing customer list. Inevitably, there’s some list work that can be done to help ensure that you’re using the most up-to-date data on your existing customers. When restrictions lift and business resumes, they’ll be the ones coming through your doors first and those you should reach out to first when your business reopens. So, clean, update and get an understanding of list counts for one-to-one marketing outreach so that you can hit the ground running.

Get Your Messaging Right

Next, consider this: a lot has changed in our country, states and local communities in the last few months and it’s affected how business is operated. As a business owner, you’ll need to take this into consideration when you’re communicating your message – what are you customers’ needs? What are their concerns relative to social distancing? How will you deliver your product and/or service to meet their expectations of safety?

You’ll need to address topics like, safety, trust, operating adjustments, product/service offerings and more in your messaging. You’ll need to assure them that you’re practicing the best safety methods and that you’re putting their needs and concerns first.

For instance, by continuing to include a curbside pick-up or delivery option to address concerns about shopping or being amongst large groups of people is a great way to instill confidence and loyalty for customers as they begin to resume normal shopping behavior.

Have you lost market share since COVID-19 began? It’s possible you may have to re-establish your position in the market. What may have been an easy sell before may be more challenging now with consumer spending having decreased. You may be in the unique position to GAIN market share if you are quick to adjust your business or you offer products and services that withstand the current challenges. If that’s the case, your marketing efforts could pay dividends as business returns.

Prepare Your Marketing Materials

Once you’ve cleaned your customer lists and have determined what messaging you’ll use for marketing, it’s time to identify an appropriate theme, format and design for any direct mail campaign and have it designed and ready to go so that you can either start marketing or react quickly to changes.

You’ll need to determine what formats and designs will have the most impact on consumers. Ensure your direction provides enough physical space to effectively reflect; your products and services, safety measures being taken to build trust, present strong offers and stand out in the mailbox.

We also recommend using a combination of traditional direct mail and coordinated digital marketing targeted to the same recipients to reintroduce your business. Combine direct mail and digital with Spectrum Mail Plus?

With Spectrum Mail Plus, you can reach your customers in their mailboxes and online, through both Facebook and Instagram (where they are spending the majority of their time these days). The digital ads will reach them before, during and after they receive your mail campaign. Because many consumers and their families are housebound, the digital aspect of Spectrum Mail Plus has helped lift the response of traditional direct mail campaigns substantially. Typically, we see a 23-46% increase in overall response.

Planning Is Key To Your Marketing Success

As with any campaign, planning is key. Just as much thought should be put into how you’ll deploy your post-COVID-19 campaign as the campaign itself so that you can optimize its impact.

Once businesses begin to reopen and our communities returning to a “new normal”, you’ll need to be prepared for increased consumer demand. Many businesses have suffered from quarantines and lockdowns both government and self-imposed and as a result, production has decreased for many businesses as they cut back due to declining revenue. The key is to not cut back so far that bouncing back is impossible. Judging by the effects of COVID-19 from China and Europe, business recovery post-COVID-19 is coming along at a rate much higher than predicted.

This said, it’s important that businesses prepare for the increased demand once economic recovery has begun and businesses begin to bounce back. The future is still uncertain, however, it is essential to prepare rather than be caught short.

Spectrum Can Help

The important thing to remember is that we’re all in this together. When you’re ready to talk about marketing planning for your big post-Coronavirus comeback, let us know. Spectrum is here to help.

Tag: business