[Masters of Marketing] 4 Ways to Keep Marketing Effective in Protection Mode

After overcoming the initial shock of the current global crisis, how do we ensure that the marketing strategy that we employ are still successful?

Bipasha Minocha, Group Brand and Marketing Director of EtonHouse International Holdings, shares how when our society moves into protection mode, marketing can still be effective for businesses.

Highlights:

1. Focus on the right brain

When it comes to developing creatives, focus on the right brain. It is the part of the brain that is linked to empathy, connections, and relationships, time, space, and depth. Our messaging and creatives should, therefore, focus on generosity, humility, and human connections instead of being a hard sell.

Avoid using images that focus on the abstract and with literal connotations. Studies have shown that ads which connect with the right brain perform better during the pandemic. This is due to it reflecting the collective societal psyche; as people, we are kinder, more vulnerable, and reflective as we are stripped of all glamour, spending days in lockdown.

Thus, speak the language that stakeholders are likely to connect with. Remember, the nuances of your brand voice are more critical now than ever.

Source: Krispy Kreme

One may not be with their loved ones, but one can express care and affection through food.

Krispy Kreme shows the importance of maintaining strong ties with family and friends even during the implementation of the circuit breaker while promoting their doughnuts.

2. Content is king

We are consuming copious amounts of content, more now than ever. Use this opportunity to expand on content outreach and reach out to people through native advertising.

What is native advertising? It is a paid content which includes articles, videos and infographics when the business purchase and publish it on their platforms for the promotion. Whether it is through exclusive gated content or specially curated videos, now is the time to get on with it creating relevant, useful, and feel-good content.

Even if you cannot film new footage now, go through your canned content and curate footage that can build a new narrative that connects with your brand, also known as content stacking.

3. Remarketing

New leads are hard to get given that we have cut back on marketing spends and people are not ready to start new conversations with brands. But what about the old ones, those already in the pipeline? Can we nurture them, give them something that helps them make decisions? How can we reinvigorate the pipeline?

Start a remarketing campaign using programmatic, activate your AI bots to scale, rekindle relationships with partners who can help you reach out to your pipeline. Even if numbers are not overwhelming, it's the low hanging fruit that is more likely to convert.

4. Flexibility and agility

With agency partners-as media consumption habits change, competition goes down, but Cost Per Actions (CPAs) go up. Hence, it is essential to think and access trends and data to adjust the media mix. Consumption of digital entertainment and news from credible and traditional news outlets has risen—time to make those changes to your programmatic mix to be responsive to ensure effectiveness.

If you are an experienced senior marketer from a brand, agency or tech company willing to share your marketing secrets and would like to contribute to the Masters of Marketing series, click here to get in touch.