BUSINESS ADVICE | Marketing
MARKETING MATTERS
David Barker, managing director at Inspire KBB, explains why, as the green shoots of recovery start to show, now is the time to devote effort and energy into perfecting your marketing strategy in order to thrive once the coronavirus situation is over
But, based on what we’re seeing and hearing, we do know that what began as a chink of light at the end of the tunnel, is appearing bigger and brighter. Clearly, this is a fast-moving situation. But regardless of whether our doors open fully at the beginning or the end of May or even the start of June, the principles are clear: people are browsing, and people will be buying - what you do now determines who from. With the green shoots starting to show, with that glimmer of hope, you need to be devoting time, effort and energy into marketing now. Not when you open ‘properly’. It’ll be too late by then. Your competitors will have ‘caught the wave’ that’s been forming throughout April. They’ll have capitalised on the increased attention that people have had, consuming media as a browsing audience. All this means that when the money starts moving again, it’s going in the direction of those businesses. If you’re one of them, well done for your courage and your conviction - you’ll very likely reap the rewards over the coming months.
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The year of home improvement A lot of KBB retailers have already lost valuable ground with their initial reaction to this crisis. If that’s you, that needs to change, immediately. Whether you’ve educated and entertained that browsing audience through the lockdown, or ‘played it safe’ and hunkered down, the very best thing you can do right now is to push forward with your advertising and marketing.
One thing seems inevitable for 2020: (alongside the obvious) it’s shaping up to be ‘The Year of Home Improvement’. With travel restrictions likely to still be in place for
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he coronavirus crisis isn’t over. Not by a long stretch.
several months, millions of us will be staying in the UK this year. Which means money saved, and time on our hands. Both of which will very likely be devoted to improving our homes.
And you know better than most, that decisions aren’t made the day the deposit goes down. They’re made in the weeks and months leading up to that day. They’re being made now.
This month is not about sitting back, waiting to see what happens, while curiously tracking those who made more noise in your market through March and April. It’s time to make a decision.
Are you going to watch the competition? Or, are you going to be the competition…?
If you confidently push forward, you too can accelerate out of May with more enquiries, more discussions, more designs and a pipeline to flood your business with opportunity through the second half of this year, and into the next.
Hitting play on paused work This month, your message needs to be all about your ‘re-opening’. Firstly, you need to get back talking to those people in your pipeline, who paused when the lockdown kicked in. For this group, it’s a sales approach that’s required. Hit the phone, email, video conference, even direct mail to reconnect. For some of this group, things will have changed. But others will be looking to press on again with plans. If they move quickly enough, these people are most obviously your summer installations. (That’s a point of leverage in itself.) However, you also need to be speaking to a larger, yet slightly cooler audience. Those people who - through nearly two months of staying at home – have put their living spaces under scrutiny, they now have firm plans to develop some of them and are
considering how and when to take the next step. And some of these people will have already undertaken considerable research. For this group, it’s advertising that’s required to reach them: • Facebook and Instagram (paid campaigns) • Google Ads • Local radio • National and local print and digital media • Specialized KBB magazines • Email (obviously, where you have data) Prioritise platforms like these where you can get your ‘re-opening’ message up and running within a week or less.
Planning for the end of 2020 This second, larger group of people are likely to be your autumn installations, and beyond. As with everyone, your prospects have been longing for the period we’re now entering, as the lockdown lifts. Don’t leave them to contemplate their next step on their own – reach out and extend a helping hand. Now’s the time to be explicit with what it is that you offer.
And when that interest becomes apparent, remember to consider your fitting capacity. For the first time in a long while, you may be in a position to hold firm on your margins. It’s a brave new world.
The coronavirus crisis has changed pretty much
everything in the short term. But its effects will impact both the medium and long term.
It’ll change the way we live. And that will likely see us all spending more time, closer to home. For KBB retailers, that longer-term shift stands to bring benefits. If so, you’ll be considered some of the fortunate ones.
And isn’t that about time? · May 2020
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