Marketing Communication Action Framework
Practical ways to determine what to communicate in the first phases of this crisis can be found through the VEMT Marketing Communication Action Framework:
1. Stop the presses
It’s important to pause all scheduled communication (ads, social media, tweets, campaigns, etc) and review them for the results the next steps deliver before they are rescheduled and broadcasted again. That might be difficult in some cases, but… better be safe than sorry; be rigorous about it. Kill your darlings and accept that times have changed, even if this is new and it happened only 24 hrs ago. Do not start your ‘inspiring city trips campaign’ or announce ‘beach life clothing collections’ in times like these when travel has stopped.
Reconsider advertising as you do it now. It’s important to keep your brand top-of-mind, especially in the recovering phases of any crisis, but advertising might not be the best method in the first phases. Ideally, you have been building on a marketing program (like a loyalty program, VIP-club or alike) through which you can communicate more directly and with much with lower costs to the various segments of your audience.
2. Follow up Fast
As quickly as you must stop current communication plans, you should follow up with the revised approach. As mentioned before: ‘not communicating’ easily translates in ‘not caring’, which should be avoided at any time during a crisis. Don’t pretend to know everything at this moment and indicate clearly about what is not clear yet.
Of course, ideally you would have prepared the next steps, but bear in mind that every crisis is different, and it requires its own story. Preps are vital for the IT guys, but it’s unlikely that you in marketing were able to prepare content and cases for a Corona pandemic, so buckle up and use the agility of your marketing team to respond fast AND good.
3. Pick Topics
Identify what – at this moment – are the topics your customers care about, are afraid about, complain about or might be interested in. It’s probably not your place and expertise to dive into the medical aspects of the corona virus or on how to disinfect your hands in public transport, but you should determine what options you have to create situational relevance related to core values that matter in times of crisis. A few inspiring examples:
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- Support connections between people: inspiring stories on how people help each other, how to comfort those in need, inspiring safe contacts with elderly, delivering communication hardware to those in need, insight in where people might find resources, etc.
- Care for your loved ones: healthy recipes using non-fresh food, games to play at home when kids get bored, make-overs to feel good, etc
- Prep for a changing world: grow veggies from home, choose a wardrobe for working from home, entertainment guide for virtual arts or inspiring podcasts,
- Practical solutions for working from home: how to look great on a video call, how to best use the time you win by not commuting, how to focus on work with kids around, lunch recipes you always craved for, etc.
The choice of topic(s) should be a consistent theme (don’t change it weekly) and has to communicate the added value of your brand. Ideally, you extend on a topic you were already communicating before the crisis, but don’t be afraid to make bold choices, as long as your customers can see you are really committed to delivering value, rather than only claiming it.
It goes without saying that hypocrisy should be avoided. Ad-hoc donations to homeless orphans or baby seals won’t cut it and will sink your credibility through the floor. Just this week, we saw a life-style brand listing ’10 Feel-good products for Corona times’. The lack of pretention and brand consistency worked much better than a US Investment Bank that claimed to have donated $10M to Corona orphans in Asia, no matter how beautiful that gesture might be.
4. Translate topics
Take your Brand Guide (or alike) and extend the chosen topic(s) into your specific (branded) tone of voices (including graphics). Ideally, you clearly connect the topic with your products, your tone-of-voice and – if you go for a perfect score – make sure you translate various aspects to the characteristics of the specific segment you communicate with.
When you improvise or create something quickly, just tell your customers about that and they won’t mind a little less perfect photography or the sudden emphasis on another topic. (Visual) communication that is too perfect and smooth could even work against you in times of crisis because it lowers the image of authenticity. Just make sure you are open and transparent about how and what you communicate so you don’t lose your brand authenticity.
5. Personalize, personalize, personalize
In the first phase of the crisis, communicate as directly to each individual as you can. Personalize in any way you can using your AudienceBuilder, the data from your CDP and marketing/loyalty program. Email is a better channel than ads, chats are even better if you are ready to use this channel at scale.
Increase relevancy and emphasize the relationship you have already built with your customers. Now is the moment to strengthen them. If you know someone is a mum or a foodie, use that in your communication. If you know your customer has kids (which most likely are staying at home now), you can address their personal situation much better than companies who didn’t record that data. If you have collected individual preferences through your loyalty program, or observed detailed behavior about interests through your CDP, now these investments will deliver you immense value and will enable true two-way relationships. So use it intensively.
6. Pick Channels
Without a doubt, someone in your company will mention, no… more likely, will demand you cutting marketing costs. Even though every high school marketing book will emphasize contra-cyclical investments to grow revenue, the chances are that your CFO didn’t read those books and demands immediate budget cuts, especially from Marketing. Although you should step into that war and defend your high school truths vigorously, you can cut short term advertisement budget by replacing it with a loyalty program. Switch from ads to ‘earned audience’ for which you do not have to pay for every contact, but only once to have customer register. After that, you will have more data about them, and significant less costs/contact.
7. Align channels
Instructing store personnel takes time, but is essential for the credibility of your story. Adding new topics to your chatbot might take some time as well, but handing out new instructions to customer service in the morning should be part of your crisis skill set, even if you didn’t have the time or resources to fully document those instructions yet. Your customer support team will appreciate being part of the solution, rather than those who only feel consequences. Building direct relationships with them proves to be worth your time and effort, especially in getting clear what customer responses are, what possible problems are and what unexpected consequences of your new messaging might be. Listening to their experience after every email, website change or campaign is crucial before you make your next move in using the crisis to excel.
In the next course chapter: collect and use the data that you will get after each message.
8. Process Feedback
In a crisis, it could be extra sensitive if unsubscribes are not processed quickly, also if they don’t follow the ‘usual procedure’. Be flexible and instruct your customer service to recognize these sensitivities and empower them procedurally and technically to make unsubscribes based on insight, rather than on procedures. Similarly, you might want to review your usual returns procedure and create extra sympathy with customers to be more lenient than usual, also taking of pressure off the online delivery channel, which might be in different circumstances than usual.