Nail it first before your competitors look at you in the rear mirror

Don't let your competitors get ahead of the curve!

In this lockdown period, some companies are paralysed in their thinking and action because they are not agile. However, it is business as usual for those companies which are used to remote working or working from home. I would argue that during these COVID-19 days, companies should not stop doing marketing or else, they will erode their brand equity and therefore, expose their business by the time things get back to the new normal. So, do not cut down your marketing budget but shift most of your marketing budget on digital marketing.

Digital Marketing

Of course, you should not spend advertising money on outdoor media such as billboards or parking adverts. Instead, devise your digital marketing strategy with the aim to build brand awareness and preference for your corporate brand or product brands. For instance, a bank can develop a series of animated videos, without any human characters due to the lockdown, featuring its e-business solutions explained by its experts, advising how to manage investments during a recession when stock prices are plummeting and developing a post-lockdown special loan for SMEs and thus, start building their client pipeline prior to the lockdown removal.

FMCG new business model

FMCG companies should review their business models to embrace e-commerce or should I say, online shopping. They should adapt and innovate their route to market to make sure that consumers can view, select, review and order their products online. A consumer door-to-door delivery model should also be developed and on this point, I contend that FMCG companies should think about subcontracting part or all of their consumer delivery activities because in e-business, the best models are those with a synergistic ecosystem with several strong and trusted partners who will deliver high value to the consumers both in terms of products and service quality. In this way, risks and costs are shared among partners in the ecosystem.

Don't miss the boat

Those companies which are still reflecting on whether to go digital or not are wrong. The digital transformation wave has been around for some time and some companies have hesitated to embrace it. If a company misses the boat NOW, there is a high likelihood that they will pay the price very heavily in the coming months.

Be shrewd when you mix

Companies should adjust and blend their marketing mix strategies akin to an e-commerce company like Amazon, Alibaba or ebay among others. In other words, they should constantly track and adjust their product, pricing, location-targeting and promotional tactics such as regular discounting, incentives such as free gifts, free trials, point-based loyalty schemes, and so on and so forth. Big Data and AI will definitely help in developing sustainable marketing models based on precise customer insights.

Go or No Go

There is no doubt that companies willing to embark on a digital transformation journey should do their Cost-Benefit Analysis (CBA) first but they should avoid falling into the trap of "analysis-paralysis."

Nailing it!

In a nutshell, companies should shift from offline marketing to digital marketing, rethink their business models to embrace a digital customer-centric approach.

Those business people who think that we'll be back to normal shortly will unfortunately be unprepared for the COVID-19 long cycle predicted by experts. So, do you want to adapt or perish?