The deadly Coronavirus pandemic has swept throughout the globe with over two million confirmed cases and nearly one hundred and thirty thousand confirmed deaths. In an effort to contain the spread of the pandemic and save lives, various countries have declared nationwide lockdown. This effort to contain the virus has affected the global economy as some businesses have had to shut down indefinitely while others have had to resort to working remotely. As a result, a lot of people have lost their jobs and businesses that cannot operate remotely are on hold.
The question on the minds of most businesses now is, ‘’how can my brand remain relevant during this crisis?’’
At a time like this, it is important for businesses that can operate remotely to keep up their productivity levels and ensure that they get through this incredibly difficult time. Your brand can produce some of its best work while working remotely by setting up a structure for your team to help them remain productive.
There are few strategies you can implement to survive, thrive and maintain brand relevance during this unprecedented global crisis. These strategies have been tried and tested by organizations who have worked remotely on and off for the past two years. These strategies will help your company remain productive and relevant.
Here are 5 Five ways brands can remain relevant during the COVID-19 lockdown:
Equip your team with tech and productivity tools
First and foremost, one of the most important ways to retain brand relevance is to ensure your team succeeds while working remotely by equipping them with the tools to help them stay connected and productive. Sending a team of mostly young Millennials home is a little daunting as a boss – how well you know everyone is doing their job? – but you should trust your team if they are using some great tools to stay connected, track productivity, and make sure they don’t drop the ball on any client work.
These include project management tracking apps such as Asana and Airtable, chat/messaging apps such as Slack and Microsoft Teams, and video conferencing apps such as Zoom and Google Hangouts as well as ScreenMeter, which tracks employee projects through their home PC.
Equipping teams with these new technologies allow managers and employees to all stay on the same page no matter where they are working from, whether it’s from home or waiting in a long line at the grocery store.
These new apps might also help keep your team more productive and connected after COVID-19 fears lessen and people go back to work.
Stay in touch with your customers
Holding back on announcing or unveiling any major campaign or initiative that will not grant your customers reprieve during the pandemic is not a bad idea. However, staying quiet may not be the best option. Re-evaluate your strategy and measure if your brand’s messaging still stacks up to the current climate. If it does not, then a messaging revamp exercise should be in order.
Engaging your clients, who are very well available on the internet is one way to maintain brand relevance. Measure your campaign messaging against what other brands are currently doing to help you evaluate how your target audience will react to your campaign. This will guide your strategy and content. It will also help your brand give your target audience exactly what they need.
If you have always had to scramble for content to post on your blog or social media channels, now is the time to create the content that can be pushed out at a steady cadence.
Do not ignore the elephant in the room
As your brand takes over the digital space, do not assume that it is “business as usual”. The power of a brand is in the message it passes across to its target audience. Being insensitive to the current situation will reflect badly on your brand. You may lose followers, engagement and be tagged insensitive. Show that you care by being sensitive to the climes. Structure your content to be an engaging mix of what you do and messages that give hope during these trying times. You can even create fun content that is tied to your niche for your audience to participate in and share. This strategy will create engagement and even generate new followers on your social media platforms. It also communicates how sensitive such a brand is towards promoting safety of people generally and can endear the brand better to its customers.
Create Educative and Informative content
A lot of people have not been able to work from home since the lockdown began in most countries and are less busy as a result. This “idleness” has led to an upsurge in internet activity and proactive brands are taking advantage of this opportunity to showcase their business on social media.
Companies are downsizing their staff and cutting pay due to a dive in income revenue. People are also learning new skills to increase their chances of getting side jobs and be sufficiently skilled to take on new jobs if they have to post lockdown.
You can leverage this opportunity to build your brand’s relevance. Position your brand as a solution to people’s needs while also increasing your bottom line by putting up knowledgeable content that teach a skill.
If your brand does not have the capacity to do this, partner up with other brands that can teach people the skills they need to survive post-COVID-19.
Be socially responsible
Brands such as Fashionnova amidst other brands have already set up an online platform to reach out to people and give aid financially to the tune of millions of dollars. While it might look like a loss, it is actually an investment. These brands will naturally gain better reputation, goodwill, endearment, and top of mind awareness from their customers, target audience and the general public.
If your brand can afford to, give back to society, you should. It makes your brand sympathetic to people’s current hard-situation and shows your support for humanity in the fight against Coronavirus.
If you need help to strategically position your brand digitally, contact us today. We are here to help your brand remain relevant,