Yusuke Inui highlights the importance of seeking specialist marketing advice to fine-tune your digital marketing strategy in this post-Covid world.
Businesses are facing challenges that they have never faced before. Even as New Zealand begins to open up, it’s slow going and owners need to think about how they will survive in this ‘new normal’.
The physical restrictions of the (completely necessary) lockdown added a whole new dimension compared to something like the 2008 global financial crisis (GFC).
Many small business owners are worried about their livelihoods and their staffs’ – uncertain their business will survive in a post-COVID world.
And this panic is bleeding into their decision-making.
With 15 years of experience as a marketing strategist, I can see that many of these snap decisions made from a place of fear will be make or break in the weeks and months to come.
Many business owners are making decisions without the support of experts who could steer them in the right direction.
This is most true for small business owners who are often enthusiastic experts with less business experience, a small support network, and little strategic support from the government.
There’s a knee-jerk reaction to scale back or cut marketing and advertising efforts. I saw this in the GFC and what happened with those who stuck with it or even doubled down on marketing efforts. When businesses scale back to save a few bob, they often don’t survive.
Get the right advice
A colleague told me this true story of a business in New Zealand.
A poultry farm had been struggling. The owner’s accountant told him he was spending too much on feed and said he should cut back on the quality and quantity of feed.
Sure enough, the chickens laid fewer eggs. The result: less product to sell, a dramatic loss of revenue and, eventually, total collapse.
Marketing in the modern landscape is the lifeblood of a business. If you reduce your marketing, those companies who haven’t will take customers that could have been yours. Fewer customers = less revenue. We’ve all seen this play out in the marketplace.
When businesses make marketing decisions without good advice, things can get messy, quickly.
[Your advisor] doesn’t have to be a marketing strategist, but it should be someone who has seen businesses through tough times and has marketing that you admire.
Here’re 4 things you can do
- The most important thing is to be strategic, logical and rational.
As well as seeking experts who you can bounce ideas off, make your decisions quickly. Be agile. Even if you have to change things on the fly, it will be better than missing your shot.
- Be adaptable.
If the customers are still not flowing in, do what is needed to put your business in the best position now and over the next one to three years. Whether in a big way, like distilleries producing sanitiser, or a small way, like a cafe offering delivery.
- Adapt your marketing too.
Figure out how to market to new customers and keep in touch with those you already have. Don’t slash your marketing budget hastily. If you throw away your paddle, you’ll have no chance further up the creek. Keep your brand alive and when they want to spend, it will be you they think of first.
- Get online!
The world has gone online, and everyone has had to learn digital literacy. From shopping to meetings, the world is never going to be the same.
If you haven’t figured out your digital strategy by now, you are playing a dangerous game. Update that website, figure out Google and Facebook advertising, sell any goods you have online. For example, if you own a hair salon you want it to be the first company to pop up when someone is looking for hair treatment. Once they are on your website, they are engaged with your brand.
The world is changing. If you don’t get online now, your competitor will, and you’ll be left in the dust. Your business survived Covid-19, now it has to survive in the ‘New Normal’.
Yusuke Inui (pictured) is director and ‘recession marketing strategist’ at Unleashing Potential.
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