Three Ways to Make Your Marketing Pandemic Sensitive

For a hundred years, we’ve never made a lifestyle adjustment quite like the one we’ve had to make during the coronavirus pandemic. As a result, many organizations are seeing visits and sales drop. Others may be seeing them rise. The reality is that the behavior patterns of customers are changing dramatically to accommodate this public health emergency.

As a communicator and marketer, do you still know how to reach your audience and customers during this time?

Dr. Stephen Covey, author of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, writes in his book that it takes only 21 days to make a new habit stick. 

Now that we are three months -- 90 days -- in, do you know what sorts of new habits your target audience members have adopted? 

Here are just some samples of new habits a few real people I interviewed have already established:

• Prioritizing more family time -- a “no rush” morning
• Shopping online and having groceries delivered
• Sleeping later
• Exercising daily
• Teleworking - “I can’t imagine driving back into work”
• Avoiding news -- or bingeing on it
• Becoming more consumed in childcare and household affairs, with less time for “extras”
• Adopting a simpler lifestyle with more routine

Rooted in new habits are new priorities -- of taking care of self and family, of saving money, of simplicity in the midst of new demands, and of trying to help others during a stressful time. 

The good news is that with a bit of market research -- like the list of habits and behaviors above -- you can reexamine your outreach and promotions to align your customers’ current top values with what you have to offer them.

With that said, here are three ways to make your marketing more pandemic sensitive:

1. Be human: The number one most important thing to do right now is to be empathetic in all communications. You don’t know how the customer on the receiving end is feeling, so you need to err on the side of being understanding, especially during this time. “[Everyone we are working with] is human, and they are under stress. Making time to just be human with each other in how we are doing things is really important,” says Frank X. Shaw, who manages communications at Microsoft, during a recent webinar he gave on lessons for communicating during COVID-19.
2. Keep it simple: There is a lot of complexity now that there didn’t used to be -- even formerly-easy trips to the grocery store now involve planning ahead, strategic shopping and masking up. As a communicator, you should keep your messaging and calls to action simple and clear to make it easier for your audience to understand and act quickly. Revisit your sign-up and check-out forms to make sure that they all work smoothly and can be accomplished in as few clicks as possible. “[But] don’t try to create anything new during this time,” says Shaw. “Keep it simple and go back to the basics.” 
3. Give back: Some of the best recent promotions acknowledge customers’ desire to give back to first responders and social causes as part of the experience. Organizations are coming up with all sorts of creative ways to do this. Just a few examples:

• Badd Pizza giving customers the option of purchasing a personal pizza for a healthcare worker when they check out;
• TouchNote challenging their audience to send a card of encouragement to any front-line workers or simply a loved one who could do with a little pick-me-up, and offering a free card in return. 
• BeautyCounter advertising that they are matching donations to Save the Children.

Staying attentive to these three practices during the pandemic will go a long way in helping you connect with your customers. At a higher level, we also recommend that you revise your strategic communications plans.  This may require some dramatic rethinking, not of your mission, but of how you implement it. 2020 has been a shock to the system, but with the right sort of planning, great change and hardship can also bring new opportunity.