We are all aware of how COVID-19 has changed our lives including where we work and how we market. Obviously, if your marketing is about face-to-face as well as face-to-face networking, you might be concerned about how you can keep staying connected with clients while still remaining in social distancing.
You should continue with your marketing while still abiding by social distancing guidelines. If a big part of your marketing was involved in live videos, consider incorporating animated videos instead which will not need crews and casts of people to be on hand. You can easily remain active and not fall behind during these very difficult times.
Do Not Stop Your Marketing Efforts
Businesses are dealing with more uncertainties than ever before so you might be asking why even bother dealing with marketing right now. You are probably tempted to just cut back your marketing or stop altogether until things improve. A really big downside to that reasoning, how are your customers going to hear from you? If they don’t hear from you, there’s a chance they will forget about you and start shopping somewhere else!
Let me remind you, people are thirsting for connection and distraction. They will continue to remember brands that have not let them down and build up communities during this social distancing. Once you understand their concerns, you will create customer loyalty and improve your relationship with customers. That, unto itself, is worth the investment.
In reality, the worst thing you can do right now is to sit on your hands and do nothing! Don’t discard the relationships with clients that you have spent years building. Give them avenues to stay engaged with your brand while dealing with CDC guidelines. Discover some new ways to adjust your marketing strategies for social distancing.
Consider Virtual Events Instead Of In-Person Events
If you have always depended on one or two large events to have an impact on your customers, you might b a little nervous. There will be twice the stress if you had to cancel or postpone an event due to our current situation. Consider a nice blend of pre-recorded and live videos that will allow you to continue with your big event!
While abiding by social distancing guidelines, try video conference tools to meet your marketing needs.
Here are some ideas for hosting a good virtual event:
First off, choose the right platform. There are approximately a dozen platforms that include tools for live streaming, chat rooms, attendee registration, and so much more. You can easily research the many platforms to find the one that fits your budget and have the tools you need. Ask yourself which parts of the event will be live stream. What areas will be pre-recorded videos? If you want an interactive event, you can combine both. You might decide to have a pre-recorded video that has live commentaries from your speakers who are remote experts. Offer an animated video to help keep your audiences engaged and add some structure to your conference, then mix them up. If your event will run longer than an hour, you probably should use graphics, videos, or other elements to keep things interesting. Both pre-recorded and animated videos will give you the opportunity for a snack, catch up with participants through chat, or just have the chance to rest your voice.
With self-distancing, people are looking for things to do so reach out through email lists and share event information on your social media platforms. Have a really good proposition to get people to sign up.
Just like in the past, always have a backup plan. There is no way to control technical issues that will bury your event. Have a video prepared so you can play it if your speaker is having problems logging on. Once the event has concluded, share the video as one long video or edit and cut the video to create several smaller videos, commercials, or highlights to promote your future event.
Animated Videos
If you want to shoot live-action commercials or other content, change them to animation. These videos are very flexible and inexpensive. You can alter them to fit your brand voice and style. Also, animators work independently so they never have to be in the same room or even in the country! And it’s better to order an animated video from professional manufacturers, for example, you can order a video here – inovitagency.com.
Think about how you can translate your plans to live-action recordings into whiteboard videos, 3D animation, or character animation.
Use A Video In An Email To Reach Out To Clients
You probably have clients that are used to face-to-face interaction. Using virtual communication can be difficult. Although video calls have their place, pre-recorded videos sent through email or social media channels can work really well. We can all use seeing a familiar face right now and people are thirsting for social connections.
You can record custom videos for each client or share a pre-recorded one, a distraction and a friendly face can go further than you might imagine. This can go a long way to make clients feel less lonely. You can still keep marketing as long as you keep in mind that many of your clients and customers are now in a very strange place. Create content that is entertaining, engaging, and offers connections. We all need that right now!
Plan For The Future
Although it might sound far off, there will come a time when this situation will come to an end. Keep marketing and stay positive, the future is just around the corner and just like other things in life, this bad pandemic will come to an end and we will be back to re-configuring marketing before COVID-19 knocked on our doors.
