Having a hard time coming up with new campaigns lately?
If you’re like most professionals, many of your meetings are probably spent discussing what’s different, what’s allowed, and what other companies are doing. That’s also true for marketers, but dwelling on these repetitive conversations can lengthen the period of time it takes to complete projects. It can delay incoming revenue and give your competitors space to dominate your sector during what’s turning out to be an influential period for consumer relations.
To help you fast-forward and get to the heart of your project—the way you used to expedite creative strategy before the pandemic occurred—there are a few shortcuts you can take.
In business school, you might have learned about the “four Ps of marketing.” You’ll probably be pleased to know that they’re still being taught, and used, today. And they can help expedite decision-making in confusing times where you otherwise risk getting bogged down during the critical planning stages of a new marketing campaign.
So here’s a pandemic planning outline you can follow during your next kickoff meeting:
· Product – As always, it helps to start with the basics. What is your product? Is it still useful to its previous customer base? Are there new benefits or has the global climate introduced a new potential audience for this product? Get to know your product (or service) in a new way, looking at it with fresh eyes, and let it reveal its assets to your team so that you can highlight them to future users or buyers.
· Price – Targeting a price point can be difficult these days. You might need to reduce it to accommodate consumers with less expendable income than usual. Demand might have shifted, or there might be more competition today, depending on your client, product, and industry. Pricing is also a matter of strategy; in some cases, it is necessary to elevate price to balance out growing expenses on the business end. However, this might elevate the cachet of your product, and you have the power to communicate why this is actually best for customers. A higher price point might mean allowing the brand to continue producing effective, quality products that its customers will appreciate.
· Promotion – What is the best way to promote your product? What messaging and creative is going to hit home with your audience these days? How can you best showcase your item’s features while honestly reflecting its current relevance and without offending any potential buyers who might be sensitive to “bragging” during a pandemic?
· Placement – Where should you advertise your product or service? People are not gathering in the same spaces these days as they did before they pandemic hit. Obviously, they aren’t outdoors as much, or even in their cars. They are home, they are online. Digital advertising is seeing a huge surge, but it helps to dig deeper and truly identify where people are spending the bulk of their time these days. If you were previously getting a lot of traction on Facebook, for example, you might see greater return from ads on YouTube these days, which is seeing enormous traffic surges.
With these classic guidelines shaping your strategy, you’ll find yourself clarifying decisions right away and refocusing your efforts where they matter: creating and distributing impactful ads.
If you have any remaining questions, just reach out to your friends at Mad 4 Marketing.