Three weeks ago most of our clients asked the same question within days of each other: should we stop everything? The answer we gave, and still give, is no, but change what you are doing and change it quickly. Here is the plan we handed out, written in a week when nobody knew how long any of this would last.
Marketing through lockdown: what to cut and what to protect at all costs
Cut anything promoting an experience people currently cannot have. Campaigns driving footfall to a closed location. Creative featuring crowds, handshakes or travel, which now reads as tone deaf even when it is not. Brand campaigns with a six month payback horizon, if cash is genuinely tight. These are not permanent decisions. They are triage.
Then protect three things. Your branded search. If someone types your name, you must be there, and it is the cheapest traffic you will ever buy. Your existing customers, because retention is now worth several times acquisition and an email to people who already trust you costs almost nothing. And your response time on every channel where a human might be trying to reach you, since service is the marketing right now.
Build while it is quiet
Every business we work with has a list of jobs that never get done because there is no time. There is time now. Fix the website speed. Write the product descriptions properly. Take the photography. Clean the customer database. Set up the e-commerce store you have been discussing since last year. Record the how to videos. Auction prices on advertising are unusually low right now, which means the brands that stay visible are buying attention at a discount they will not see again.
Say something honest
Customers do not need a generic message about unprecedented times. They need to know what is open, what is delayed, how you are handling deliveries, and who to contact. Specific and useful beats warm and vague every single time. Publish it on the site, pin it on social, and update it when it changes.
Nobody knows how long this lasts. What we do know is that the businesses that used the last two recessions to build rather than hide came out with more market share than they went in with. If you want a hand deciding what to cut and what to build in your own plan, start with the free audit.
