The global crisis is heavily impacting businesses worldwide. Travel bans and stay at home mandates are restricting consumer movements. With the travel and hospitality sectors hardest hit, they are pulling their advertising spend. The good news is that other industries are delaying ad spend instead of canceling it entirely.
If you are lucky enough not to be asked to cut your budget, a number of questions remain. Where should you spend? How much should be reallocated? What savings for your organization can you make?
Keep in mind that businesses are bedding down. They are in this for the long haul and it is vital to create long-lasting relationships with the consumer for when the market returns.
Change of media consumption
With lockdown directives in place, few people dot the streets: public transport has been left deserted, retail streets are nearly empty, and hospitality venues are shuttered. That means the prime spots for out-of-home advertising are no longer attracting the consumer attention they usually do.
With less people out and about, move your ad spend to digital formats and invest in great content. This will allow you to maintain a relationship with your consumers and build brand equity whilst they are confined to their homes.
The biggest gains are expected to be in social and digital video advertising. Some companies could even utilize online gaming to convey their messages if the audience age is appropriate.
Shift of budgets
Consumer behavior will normalize, as people exit the lockdown. This should mean an increase in advertising spending later this year with so many brands wanting to make up for losses. You could even see a recovery that is fuelled by so-called “revenge spending” sprees or consumers going out of their way to support local.
“I was trapped in my home for an entire month … Now I feel somewhat free again.”
ANDY LI , 29 Years Old
visited his mall three times in wo weeks after quarantine measures eased in China .
Although, if the effects of this crisis go on longer than expected, the story may be different. History shows that after a recession or financial crisis, purchase behavior changes. People may think twice before going on their next shopping spree due to the impact of the downturn. Or consumers may have tried a cheaper product and like it! Your focus, therefore, is to create and keep your brand at the forefront of the minds of consumers.
Work smarter
Software solutions are the lowest cost, easiest, and most effective way to work smarter to connect with your customer, and internal teams.
Online proofing solutions such as PageProof allow you to efficiently review and approve anything and everything related to marketing online. Website content, video, imagery, social media ads, HTML banner ads…everything. The benefits are endless but notably include:
- Huge timesaving – feedback is streamlined with reviewers all commenting on the same file, at the same time
- Cost savings in courier costs and speed – comments are captured online, on one file version at a time. Reviewers receive the proof immediately with no wait.
- Printing costs are eliminated, clarity gained – digital files are now routed. No more hard-copies with illegible mark-ups.
- Costly mistakes are reduced – everything is clearly tracked, who asked for what change, what was done versus not.
- Turnaround times are quicker – designers work from a clear, single to-do list
In summary
It is important to keep investing in your brands at a time of crisis. But review where you spend to ensure that you can reach consumers during the lockdown. It may make sense to delay budgets until consumers are ready to spend again. Finally, there are many marketing tools available to reduce costs and increase efficiencies. Work smarter to ensure you are in this for the long run.