Marketing Your Business During A Worldwide Crisis

At Guarantee Restoration Services, like most companies and organizations throughout this pandemic, we have had to adapt our businesses practices. Simply stated, these are crazy, unprecedented times, and we are all having to adjust every aspect of our lives. Like our other departments, our business development and marketing team has had to alter its sales, marketing and customer-relationship strategies.

“COME ON AND ZOOM!”

Do you remember this theme song? Chances are, if you or your kids grew up in the late 1990s, you certainly do. It was a daily program on PBS, and it always pops in my head when I get on a Zoom call. Am I the only one, or is it just me? No? Then, I digress…moving right along!

Around mid-March, everything really started to shut down in Louisiana, Mississippi and across the country. Many people, if you were not laid off or furloughed, had to adjust to working from home. A lot of businesses started utilizing Zoom, Go-To Meeting, Microsoft Teams or other video conferencing software for its staff meetings. Our employees use both Zoom and Go-To Meeting for internal and external meeting with customers and partners. Although many businesses have returned to normal, in-person working hours, we have found that video meetings are still quite prevalent throughout all industries.

LOOM AND CO-VIDEO

While video meetings are great for business conversations, how else can you connect with your customers if you can’t meet for lunch or coffee? Our marketing team has used a couple different video messaging systems. First, there is Loom video. These are short video messages that you can email. There is a free version available, but there are also paid subscriptions with more features.

Although our business development team has used Loom in the past, we are changing to another platform, Covideo. Recently, we opted to do a paid subscription through this service. With Covideo, you can send videos via email, social media, text messaging or your CRM integration. Covideo has a reporting feature which shows you who opened your videos, when they were opened and how many times they were played. In addition, you can customize several features to reflect your brand or business by adding a header image and landing pages. It is more personal and fun than sending a traditional email or text message!

DELIVERED LUNCHES OR TREATS

Like I mentioned earlier, during the pandemic and even out of the shutdowns, it’s much harder than it ever has been to simply meet for lunch or grab a coffee. We have either dropped off lunches to our partners or had them delivered by services like Waitr, GrubHub or UberEats. You may also consider picking up a cookie platter, cupcakes or other sweet treats and dropping them off just to say you’re thinking of them throughout this time.

OTHER IDEAS FROM OUR GRS MARKETING TEAM

In June, our marketing team put together small gift bags for our reps to drop-off to our customers. These contained GRS-logoed masks, hand sanitizer and cleaning spray. Something small, but the thoughtfulness goes a long way. In addition, we have either hand-delivered or mailed items like coffee gift cards. You may not be able to meet up for a latte, but someone will appreciate a $5.00 Starbucks card more than you know.

In addition, our Mississippi team has given lips stickers to our partners in the area as way to add some fun to mask-wearing. I also sent out some “Flat Kristens,” to some of my customers. The idea was for the recipient to take a selfie with these characters of me for a chance to win air pods on Facebook.

Finally, our Marketing Manager, Christina Riviere, has focused a lot of our social media, videos and blog posts on COVID-19-related safety, tips or other information. While it’s important to continue to create or continue customer relationships, staying relevant to the on-going crisis is also just as important.

WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO PIVOT?

Throughout this article, I have focused mostly on what our business, or more specifically, on what our department has been doing to continue our partnerships and customer relationships. Now, this begs the question what are you, your business or employer doing differently? We want to hear from you! Share via email by contacting me today at kristens@guaranteerestoration.net or connect with me on LinkedIn.