Communication is Key, Now More than Ever.
As our country is beginning to slowly reopen, we’re all facing the fact that things are still going to be a lot different for a long time to come. We’ve been working with our clients throughout this crisis and have been awed by their resiliency, responsiveness and the responsibilities they have taken on to ensure the safety of their staff and customers — and the vitality of their business. As we all make this transition to being open-ish, we wanted to share some communication strategies — because right now, communication is more important than ever.
Be true to your brand while remaining respectful of people’s struggles. With social media at our fingertips, it’s all too easy to get frustrated with current conditions and put out a message that you’ll later regret. Instead, focus on your brand and mission and strategize how you can communicate with your audience any changes in business. Take Happy Jacks in Bolton Landing for example. This store brings so much joy and laughter to everyone that walks in. To stay true to their fun (and funny) brand, we created the below ad to let their customers know that they are closed, but they’ll be back. Can you hear the on-hold music?
Use downtime to connect with your audience and work on your brand. It may be tempting to catch up on all the good Netflix shows, but at this stage we’ve all watched Tiger King — and let’s face it, nothing will beat it. Use this time to do the things that we all wished we had time for pre-coronavirus. Connect with your audience over social media — even if that just means giving updates on if you’re open or closed and your plans. Engage with your audience by asking questions and making them feel heard, while gathering input on your business from them. And really take the time to focus on your branding and marketing plan. With so many changes happening, the time to adapt your business model and branding is now.
Take Glens Falls Community Theatre for example. They had to cancel their season due to the coronavirus, but instead of going dormant, they used their downtime to rebrand and to communicate with their audience over social media about the entire rebranding process. One of their goals with their rebrand was to connect with a younger audience, and they were able to do just that by sharing their new brand over social media and connecting with users.
Embrace Digital. We’re thankful to have such advanced technology at our fingertips, especially during times like these. Many of our clients have quickly pivoted their business model and have utilized digital tools to offer their services. One of our clients even realized it was a better business model for her and she decided to change her name because of it! Danielle, from The Daily Squeeze, started offering her juices and smoothies to go and created an online ordering system which we linked to on her website. It was so successful that she decided to change her full name from The Daily Squeeze Juice Bar & Cafe to The Daily Squeeze Juice & Smoothie Bar to better fit their new to-go model!
Meanwhile, America’s Best Racing, who has always covered the country’s most popular horse racing events, has been pushing their coverage even further as fans are no longer able to attend the races. We’ve been creating digital graphics for their race coverage that show people when to tune in to their coverage.
Let people know if you’re opened, or closed! A lot of people are assuming that if they don’t hear from someone, that they have shut down because of coronavirus. But a lot of people have been able to either work from home or shift their business models to offer safe services. Make sure people know that!
You can do this easily with small changes to your current marketing plan. For example, we took an existing ad we had created for Fitzgerald Morris Baker Firth, P.C. and added a small sub-header to let the public know that they were still there for their clients.
Be Aware & Adapt. We’re closing on this one because it’s important. At this point, people are getting sick of hearing about coronavirus. It’s all we’ve heard about for the past four months. But we’re not sick of it because we don’t care, we’re sick of it because it’s stressful and scary. Some businesses are getting to the point where they want to just stop talking about it, and that’s understandable. But as we’re shifting into a new way of life that we know will affect us for at least the next few months, if not longer, make sure you’re showing how you’re adapting in your marketing. Because while people might not want to hear about coronavirus anymore, they do want to know that if they visit your business, they are safe.