Watch my webinar now - The importance of marketing in a crisis

A series of FREE 40 minute webinars from the Twickenham and Richmond Business Collective. Each week we'll focus on a particular aspect of business life that has been affected by the Coronavirus crisis.

We will help you, the business owner, understand the actions you can take to survive this crisis and emerge fit, healthy and ready to take advantage of new opportunities on the other side.

At Vinegar we create marketing campaigns for businesses that, of course, include aspects of design but I’m not just a designer - I look at the business as a whole and how best to market the business to its audience. This can be achieved through a mix of print such as brochures, leaflets and direct mail pieces to digital marketing such as social media posts, banner advertising or websites.

Naturally, I see design as being a vital part of any communication. However, it is the mix of them all that produces a great piece of collateral.

I think when working on any piece of marketing, there are two crucial aspects that you must get right. Firstly, the campaign, as that is what will sell more. Whether it’s a new service or a new product - each campaign needs to have a hook and a message to leave an impact upon the reader. The second is the media. What media are you going to use to promote your campaign? This could include anything from the use of radio ads, digital advertising, email campaigns, printed marketing or social media. Personally, I think the key to any great campaign is a big idea.

Why is it important to market your business in a crisis?

Of course, in any crisis it is often the marketing budget that gets cut with companies deciding to save money by not spending on advertising. This might seem like a wise decision to begin with but, historically,  it is the businesses that promote themselves in a crisis who come out ahead of their competitors. 

I think the best example of this is the infamous story about Cadbury’s continuing its advertising during World Wars - when no other chocolate brand did - which meant that after the war their sales increased because people saw the product as a luxury, one they were willing to spend money on and have as a treat once the war was over. 

The same patterns are emerging today. Many of my clients have decided to continue with their marketing and promotions, when their competitors have decided to pack up shop or close whilst the pandemic is taking place. Of course, their marketing and promotions may have changed somewhat. Advertising now needs to be more about how businesses can help their clients or customers and without being overly sales led, and instead more about the service they can offer and how they can help their clients/customers at this moment in time. It is now more important than ever to build relationships and trust. It is during times like this that trust is built. The companies that work with us now and help us in our hour of need will be the ones we remember when times are prosperous again.

What are the best ways to market your business during the crisis? 

When people think of marketing, they think of big advertising budgets and TV campaigns. Some businesses think marketing isn’t for them as it isn’t worth spending the money but marketing doesn’t have to be that expensive. Marketing has many different guises from networking, setting up social media profiles, writing blogs on your website, producing a podcast, recording online videos, small local press or radio ads - it doesn’t have to break the bank. In fact, due to what’s happening, a lot of businesses aren’t advertising as they were which means the cost of advertising has dropped and there are more opportunities for the brave.

We are living in a time when marketing really doesn’t have to break the bank. The technology is out there so most people, with a bit of help, can create an online marketing campaign themselves, whether it’s via Facebook, email newsletters, digital advertising, or even building their own website landing page.

As a company we are really big on helping businesses do it themselves. I’m in the process of writing a book called Brandtastic, which guides people through the step-by-step process of creating your own logo, brand guidelines and then showing you stage by stage how to use that branding through your own marketing. This includes tips on how to create social media pages, YouTube channels, online design software, finding perfect images and resources as well as using online web solutions to build up your own website. Of course, if my book is a great success I could be doing myself and other companies like mine out of business - but I’m a great believer in showing people the benefits of great marketing and design and there’s no better way to show people than with real life examples.

So, what is it we need to do? How do we do it ourselves?

As I said earlier, the key to any good campaign is a big idea. What is it you want to say? What is it you want to promote? What is it you want to sell? Once you’ve got that right, everything else should follow. With any piece of design, I always start on paper, sketching out ideas and messaging. I suggest you do the same right in the middle of a big A3 sheet. Include your main goal and what it is you want to achieve.

Let’s use a real-life example here. I work with a local garage and when I heard about COVID-19 and social distancing and they were worried that it might be time for them to shut up shop. Instead, they decided to stay open as a critical service to help their customers that may need work done on their vehicles. After the first week the amount of business dropped and, like so many other businesses, they thought they would have to follow suit and close until the pandemic was over.

But we decided to not let it beat us! Returning to our tried and tested format, we took an A3 sheet of paper and wrote in the centre: ‘Get more customers’. From here we looked at all the different ways we could achieve this:

Initially we updated their website to say they were open and put a board outside on the road, telling everyone that they were open for business. We then created a small social media post telling people that it was still open for business. As the other local businesses decided to close, my client was getting more and more calls from people asking if they were still open so there was obviously still a need for this service. We then ran a local radio advert – informing people that they were still open for business.

Now we could have stopped there, but we felt we could do more and that there was more to the story than just being open.

The next step was to tell their customers, new and old, the changes that they were making, including the fact that they had introduced social distancing measures. They  had also adhered to the government’s guidelines to make sure it was a safe place for all employees and customers. This type of messaging helped with the next level of marketing letters, which were sent out to all their customers. More social media posts were made and some were even promoted to reach a larger audience. An ad was taken out in the local newspaper and updates were made to the website. We created a billboard outside the garage, telling passers-by that they were open for business whilst following government guidelines.

The next stage in this campaign? My client is in the process of purchasing a COVID-19 cleaning killer kit, which supposedly can be used to get rid of COVID-19 on any service. This will be another new service to promote in the next stage of their marketing campaign.

This demonstrates how good marketing can actually help a business to succeed in these difficult times. When we first heard about COVID-19, they were thinking about closing but now we have managed to market the business through the peak of the disease. This shows how a sustained campaign can help pick up new business whose services they wouldn’t otherwise have secured. Nobody can be 100% sure that these new customers will continue to use this service once we return to normal, but I think there’s a good chance that a percentage of them will.

Interesting times for that business but what about business that have had to close - you do a lot of work within the hospitality sector - surely those businesses must have been heavily affected?

You’re right - this sector will be hit more than most and as my wife, who runs Salt PR, a hospitality PR agency, would tell you, the industry will likely never be the same again, many businesses will change or maybe even fail.

We work with many companies and some of course have decided to put our services on hold and see what happens when society returns to normal, but others have also priced the situation. In fact, three of the businesses we work with have re-focused their offering and with the right marketing we have helped them to launch new areas within their existing business.

The example I’d like to talk you through is a food retailer that supplies Oriental food to restaurants and takeaways. Their business had been hit really badly even before COVID-19 was a problem in the UK – with their Chinatown store suffering from a lack of visitors when COVID-19 was at its height in China. In addition, with fewer people eating Chinese food or going out they had noticed a drop in sales back in January. By the time businesses were hit in the UK they were ready to look at other ways to make sales. With bags of rice and other dried goods in the warehouse, ‘See Woo to You’ was born - an online service delivering dry goods to consumers at home. This was promoted across social media and their website. Initially the focus was to sell surplus stock at the warehouse, but it has now become a part of the business that they will continue to offer after the pandemic is over. Their products have been in such high demand that they have had to take on more delivery drivers. When I spoke to my client recently, she couldn’t believe the business hadn’t offered this service sooner. Sometimes we need change to happen before we can see possible changes to our business. I also feel this is the time when businesses can take risks - customers are a lot more forgiving as they understand that these are stressful and trying times. I’m sure they’ll be many things that come out of this crisis and many businesses that make a success out of it.

So, are there any marketing tips you can give us to promote a business online?

Of course - I’m a great believer in helping people to make their business grow themselves. In the past few years the DIY market - as I call it - has grown thanks to the increase in online tools either charging minimal or monthly fees, which has meant small businesses are able to have access to software and resources that wouldn’t have been available a few years ago. As previously mentioned, I’m in the process of writing a book called Brandtastic which will give step-by-step guidance to using many of these tools.

But my advice to any business is as follows:

Come up with a good, big idea, one that solves a problem or helps someone out. Create a memorable image or message that helps promote what you’re doing to solve this problem. Look at the media that is available, depending upon the size of your budget.

 Once you have your creative campaign, I would market it on as many mediums as possible. There are many free directories, websites and networks online that will help promote your service for free.

The campaign and its message should always have the same appearance. Of course, this also applies to the logo. If people see it more than once, they will know what it is and you’re more likely to build up a rapport, enabling you to develop a relationship with them.

Get as much mileage as you can out of any campaign. An example of this might be to write a blog post. Afterwards, record it and put it out as a podcast, change it and ask if you could write a blog as a guest on someone else’s site. Another option is to create a video of it as a talking head with images and upload it to a YouTube channel. Be sure to promote each time you do this through social media channels and add everything onto your website. Additionally,  send out a newsletter telling people about the blog post or YouTube channel to get as much exposure as possible, and then repeat!

Remember, the more content you produce and add to all media channels, the more likely someone is to find you. The more people that read your content whilst liking, commenting and sharing - the more people will see it. This will result in Google increasing the Google ranking, with more people seeing what you’re writing. Any new content there is available for people to comment and share.

This way, Google uses it as organic growth and you will be rewarded more. Therefore, the benefit of these campaigns will not only give you a quick win, but they will also be beneficial on a long-term basis. This is known as the ripple effect. 

I am, of course, more than happy to speak to you with any marketing design digital queries that you may have.