GAYLE WHITTAKER
Business Clinic
HR & RECRUITMENT
Gayle Whittaker is a freelance PR consultant specialising in the waste and recycling sector. Having originally trained as a journalist, Gayle made the move into PR 23 years ago and has experience in the not-for-profit, public and private sectors. She has specialised in waste and recycling for the past 15 years.
www.huntersonmedia.co.uk
Should you be marketing during a crisis?
WITH almost two months of unprece- dented lockdown under our belts, and several businesses facing financial difficulties, many companies are grappling with the question of whether or not they should be marketing their products at the moment.
In my opinion, the simple answer is yes. The objective is to keep your brand alive. However, how when and what you market is another matter.
Reputation
In the first column I wrote for this maga- zine, I talked about reputation and how any PR or marketing you carry out for your business should first and foremost be focused on the reputation you want your business to have.
Marketing or PR in a crisis is no different to that. Whatever you do now continues to build on the reputation your business has already established. It may even improve it, and of course it could drastically dam- age it as well.
So how do you promote your brand in a crisis without being criticised for inappro-
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priate marketing at a time when people’s lives are being lost? The last thing you want to do is damage your business with badly timed PR.
Tell them your story
This is a good time to go back to basics and tell your customers who you are. Mod- ern day marketing is increasingly about the people behind the brand and at a time like this, this type of story-telling is an ideal way of staying in touch with customers, keeping your brand in their mind and allowing your business to be found and understood by potential new customers.
I don’t mean go all egotistical. But think about the story behind your brand, the sto- ries about the people who work for you. If you’re at the forefront of the business, let people know who you are and how you are coping at such a stressful and challenging time.
Social media sites like Facebook and LinkedIn are ideal for this because you can do it through video. Scary thought I know but a really good way of customers seeing the faces behind the brand.
Make it relevant
As well as talking about the people behind your brand, tell stories about how your business is coping and adapting to COVID-19, especially if you or your staff are doing anything out of the ordinary such as raising money for the NHS, volunteering in the community, or if you have changed your operations to help in the fight against Covid in some way. If the motivation behind these gestures is genuine this can do more for a brand than any amount of advertising spend.
Don’t worry about your widgets
Finally, now is not the time to try to squeeze in messages about the products you sell - unless they are going to help in the fight against coronavirus. It is the brand awareness that you are aiming for. That, coupled with that good old reputa- tion, will be what helps your brand survive such challenging times so that, when all this is over and people are looking for the service or product you sell, your name will be the first at the tips of their fingers when they type into Google.
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