Your Most Important Marketing Move when the Unexpected Happens

 

Product sales follow a relatively predictable pattern – until they don’t. Your company gets significant media attention when a new CEO takes the helm. New laws and industry regulations lead to equipment upgrades or software acquisition. Maybe a competitor is acquired by a larger, more robust company. Or, the world experiences a global pandemic causing almost every aspect of business and everyday life to change overnight.

When a trigger event (an event that causes a clear and urgent need to buy) occurs, your customer’s buying behavior may change. While a simple request for a product recommendation on social media can act as a buying trigger, most companies keep a lookout for significant buying triggers that, in turn, spark a sales and marketing opportunity. A timely response to any trigger event can dramatically increase business revenue, especially when 51 percent of buyers consider a prompt response as one of the top ways to create a positive sales experience.

Messaging: Your Blueprint for All Marketing Activities

Many companies respond to trigger events with a quick new marketing activity while overlooking the foundation for all downstream marketing activities and communications — messaging. Product messaging is much more than the top three product features; it is a clear, concise statement of the value your product brings to your target buyer. Messaging looks at your ideal customer, the problems they face, how you can solve those problems, the positive impact you have on their lives, and how you are going to help them in a way that’s different from the competition. Messaging ensures consistency across all marketing activities, including print, web, social, PR, presentations, sales scripts, and any other customer communication.

For example, say a sales representative wants to create a webinar on how a product helps financial professionals increase productivity. However, you know that your target audience currently does not include financial professionals. Even more importantly, you do not have proof points or value propositions for this audience. By pointing back to the messaging framework, marketing can respond confidently that the webinar does not provide value to your buyer.

After a trigger event occurs, especially one as all-encompassing as a global pandemic, many companies rush straight into new marketing activities. Or they take the opposite (and often equally damaging) route of stopping their marketing activities altogether. Joy Gendusa, Founder and CEO of PostcardMania, suffered after she cut back on marketing during the 2008 economic crisis. “Against my better judgment, I listened to advisors and cut our marketing back. As a result, new incoming leads and revenue suffered and couldn’t rebound. In an attempt to save my business, I cut my pay by 75% and increased the marketing budget back to its pre-crash total, and our numbers quickly recovered. I will never cut my marketing budget again.”

Because the customer journey (as well as their fundamental challenges) have changed, companies should immediately evaluate and address messaging — both to avoid accidental missteps and take full advantage of opportunities to increase revenue.

A Global Pandemic Changed Everything in Unexpected Ways

While trigger events are relatively common, COVID-19 changed businesses like no other buying trigger in the past 100 years. Almost overnight, many companies moved to a 100% remote working model. Because of the social distancing requirements and stay-at-home orders in the early days of the pandemic, the majority of businesses dramatically changed how they interact with customers as well as how they deliver their products and services. The shutdowns quickly caused economic issues, which meant many companies cut their budgets — while others shuttered forever.

Because the fundamental business model for so many shifted suddenly, core messaging had to be re-evaluated and transformed to fit current events and customer challenges. Unlike other trigger events, a global pandemic is a lengthy crisis with new problems at each stage; many businesses must continue to shift their messaging.

Marketing activities and communications that were appropriate even a month ago are no longer acceptable. During the first few weeks of the pandemic, communications that focus on “we are all in this together” and “facing unprecedented times” was comforting. Now that businesses and consumers are facing the challenges associated with reopening and safely venturing back into the world, this messaging appears tone-deaf and out of touch with customers’ current struggles.

Pivoting Your Messaging (Very) Quickly

The challenge with capturing opportunities from trigger events is that you must deliver the right messaging for your customers’ current challenges at the right time. Because needs are changing rapidly during this pandemic, you must move quickly to determine what your customers need to hear — and get the right messaging in front of them before their needs change again. Trinity Packaging Supply, for example, quickly realized the importance of marketing and business nimbleness and adaptability. “Our retail clients were closing temporarily, and the future of our company was at stake,” says Anthony Magaraci, CEO of Trinity Packaging Supply. “The global shortage for PPE, gaps in the supply chain, and the nature of our business provided a unique opportunity to source necessary materials, bottle, and ship hand sanitizer around the globe. We completely pivoted not only who we market to, but the product we offer.”

Here are six steps to quickly develop the right messaging in response to trigger events such as a global pandemic:

1. Hold a mini-messaging workshop – To create the most effective messaging, gather representatives from different business departments, such as sales, marketing, support, and development. Each representative brings a unique view about the customer that can be critical when revisiting and crafting messaging. A team approach also makes it less likely that you will accidentally create insensitive messaging because you have multiple perspectives at the brainstorming table.
2. Review your target personas – Many companies use the same personas for years. However, when a significant trigger event occurs, it is essential to revisit your personas to determine if they have changed. For example, following COVID-19, web conferencing tools saw an increase in demand from industry verticles that they may not have considered their ideal buyer. Telemedicine is the perfect example. According to Forrester Research, “virtual care visits will soar to more than 1 billion this year.”
3. Dig into your target customers’ new challenges – Because your messaging must address your customers’ immediate needs, carefully consider what new problems your customers are facing during the trigger event. During the early days of COVID-19, people encountered issues with working from home (often for the first time), or homeschooling while working. Mathnasium, a retail-based franchise, faced significant impact when their learning centers closed to clients during the onset of COVID-19. “The team had to quickly pivot our messaging to talk about the launch of our new online delivery method for math tutoring, Mathnasium@home. New campaigns with hundreds of new assets were created and deployed,” shares Julian Hollingshead, Vice President of Marketing at Mathnasium. As businesses begin to reopen, they are concerned with how to keep employees safe when returning to work. And in the fall, many families with school-aged children will face challenges that we cannot fully predict. “The Mathnasium marketing team continues to pivot as centers are reopening their physical doors,” continues Hollingshead, “we are now focusing on helping parents prepare for the upcoming school year. Three pivots over three months for a franchise of 1,000 locations has been a significant accomplishment.”
4.  Identify how your products and services address your customers’ new challenges – Determine how your solutions address these new challenges. Think about what features solve the new problems and, more importantly, the value they deliver. By connecting the dots for your customers — between their need, your solution, and the ultimate value — you can increase sales of current products and even attract new customers. For example, as people plan virtual birthdays and graduations, many printing companies began advertising how they can create car banners and yard signs for milestones in ways previously not imagined.
5. Re-evaluate your messaging weekly – During “normal times,” messaging can stay the same (or at least similar) for months — and even an entire year. However, with consumers’ lives and businesses’ challenges changing on an almost daily basis, you need to make sure your messaging is on target for today, not last week. Put together a messaging task force and set a time each week to ensure the messaging is on target for today and the next week. If your customers span different states or countries, be sensitive that messaging may also need to be vastly different based on geographic region.
6. Consider perceptions at the end of the trigger event – Each trigger event is different. Still, it’s vital to avoid messaging that may be misconstrued as self-serving or opportunistic or as having taken advantage of a crisis. Instead, your goal is for customers to feel that your brand is empathetic and ready (and willing) to help them navigate during a challenging time. Often, small changes to messaging can be the difference between customers (and the media) feeling your company was insensitive rather than supportive.

Meeting the “Now” Needs of Your Target Buyers

Creating the right message for the right customer is only the first step. If you create the world’s most innovative and on-target messaging but never put it into action, you waste your messaging efforts. You must use your new messaging insights as a guide in pivoting your downstream marketing activities to support the “now” needs.

It can certainly be a challenging balance to stay top-of-mind without appearing opportunistic. By demonstrating that you understand the current reality and are in tune with what’s happening, your marketing efforts build long-term trust with your customers — which hopefully turns into lasting (and loyal) relationships. As you shape your messaging, consider these five activities that support the ‘now’ needs:

1. Focus on core brand values – With consumers facing so much uncertainty, you want your marketing activities to reflect your core brand values. Review your brand values and bring them to the forefront whenever appropriate.
2. Create content that aligns with customer pain points – Go back to the challenges that you identified during your messaging exercise. By writing blog posts on these topics without focusing on your products, you can show customers that you are a helpful, knowledgeable, and trusted source. Even more importantly, you demonstrate that you understand their needs, which is the cornerstone for building relationships.
3. Check-in with your customers – Reach out to your current customers to see how they’re doing. Don’t mention products or services, but genuinely offer goodwill on a human level. By strengthening your relationship and showing customers you care beyond the sale, you can build loyalty.
4. Carefully consider your tone – Frequently, brands get into trouble by getting their tone wrong in their messaging. You want to come across as empathetic and show humility. Be careful not to brag or use an alarmist tone in your communications.
5. Evaluate imagery – Many photos that were acceptable in the past — people gathering at events or working without masks in a conference room — may be inappropriate. Make sure all images used in all marketing materials reflect today’s reality.

 Focus on Building Trust, and Sales Will Follow

Unless you are selling toilet paper or video conference software, your sales likely took a hit during the 2020 global pandemic. Instead of pulling back on marketing and messaging because of budget cuts, messaging should remain a top priority and investment. When done correctly, the messaging you create and deliver will build something much more important for your company — a relationship with the customer. At some point, COVID-19 will be in the history books, but the trust you build with customers today will provide a foundation for the future of your business.

How have you have pivoted your messaging and downstream marketing activities in response to a buying trigger?