How should you be messaging during the pandemic?

How exactly should marketers be messaging during the pandemic? The global pandemic has changed how we live and work. As marketers, we must also change our messaging, timing and delivery. Brand marketers must make sure their brands are providing a relevant and engaging consumer experience, delivering on consideration and driving sales.

Messaging During the Pandemic

Lean into your customers

During difficult times like these, brand marketing should be of service to consumers. Use email and app notification to obtain and reinforce loyalty. Let customers opt in and out so they have control over the frequency in which they hear from you. Finally, provide customers with special offers and rewards.

Engage customers where they are

Engage with consumers in owned, earned and paid channels. COVID-19 has changed consumer behavior. Rethink and re-map the brand’s consumer experience to provide a better experience for your consumers. Audience targeting solutions across real-time will engage the right audiences and drive more purchase intent and sales. An updated and optimized online presence should also be adopted into your new plan, reflecting new audiences, purchase, competitive strategy and delivery options.

Establish your sales platform

While retail spending is down, spending on certain consumer goods is higher. For some brands, this might be the time to create their own direct to consumer platform. This would give brands the opportunity to manage the customer journey from beginning to end. For many, combining omni channel platforms and a brand’s own d-to-c platform is the best combination.

Test and learn

Once a brand establishes where to sell, it should determine what products to sell. Brands should also consider testing free shipping vs. paid shipping to see which leads to an increase in sales. Determine which messages and creative executions drive the most traffic and consider using creative optimization tools to evaluate your messages.

Let data be your driver

There’s an abundance of consumer usage and marketing performance data that can help understand the consumer. For example, a brand can test TV commercials at all times of day and use tools like Google Analytics or Adobe Analytics. They can immediately evaluate whether the ads are leading to an increase in digital traffic, product searches or social media engagement and then adjust accordingly.Carolina Macedo, the author, is Project Coordinator of Marketing Keys.