Does it make sense to stop marketing during COVID-19?

A surprising number of small business owners have told us they think they should put their marketing on hold due to the COVID-19 disruption.

The reasoning goes, they need to conserve cash to survive the lean spell and marketing is pretty pointless when everything has stopped.

Yes, conserving cash is always a sound strategy. But no marketing? Bad idea!

Over the last couple of weeks, we’ve helped heaps of clients carry out emergency cost cutting exercises. We’ve looked at their marketing spends too. But put marketing on hold altogether? No way!

Now, more than ever, you need to be communicating with customers.

• “Yes we’re still open for business”
• “Yes, we’re taking special precautions to ensure safe working conditions”
• "Slightly different arrangements due to COVID-19, but yep we’re going strong”

You need to be putting this stuff on your website, in emails, temporary signage, everywhere! Expectations with the public right now are, that everything has been disrupted. If you don’t let them know otherwise, how will they know?

The world has not stopped turning. The sky is not falling in.

The other huge thing is this: All kinds of customers are looking for stuff they wouldn’t normally want right now. In some cases, the same panic buying mentality supermarkets have seen is surfacing for certain types of trade and service work.

Right now, amongst other things, we’re seeing:

• A lot of bored home stayers looking at home and garden improvement projects, needing quotes.
• Emergency plumbers fielding extra work because of the extra use home plumbing is getting.
• Shop fitters adding retail service barriers and helping restaurants adapt to doing take away work.
• Home office conversion work.
• Crazy amounts of extra cleaning and transportation work.

People we work with on the Action Tradie Program have come up with heaps of ideas to satisfy current demands like these in short brainstorming sessions; sitting down with somebody who knows how to activate their thinking.

Often, it’s a case of revisiting stuff they’ve discarded in the past because there were better things to do at the time.

We find a lot of people think they have to come up with something new and emerging to hit the spot, but that’s often not necessary at all.

If you’re prepared to think a bit outside the box and quick enough on your toes, there are heaps of opportunities to be had.

Special Offers for Healthcare and Frontline Workers anybody? They deserve some extra support from the rest of us right now and it’s not like they’ll be out of work any time soon!

Yes, you’ll probably want to be advertising different stuff.

But that’s not hard.

Just — whatever you do — hold off sacking your AdWords / Facebook Advertising guy. Tell him it’s time to start earning his keep and you want him to help you innovate.

Are you feeling overwhelmed with business pressures right now?

We’re running a free emergency business hotline for anyone who needs support and advice to get their business through this stressful time.

Call it. We’re here to help.

We’ll also be running a free webinar online soon, where we go over pivoting strategies to ensure businesses navigate these uncharted waters successfully.

If you’re interested, send us a quick email to let us know by pasting the following into the body of your message.

PLEASE LET ME KNOW WHEN YOU HAVE SCHEDULED THE NEXT FREE WEBINAR ON BUSINESS PIVOT STRATEGIES FOR COVID-19

Contact us here

Hang tough!