[blog]
Some companies have turned off their communications during the crisis. This is not way to sustain or make new relationships. Ultimately, it is bad for business
If you stop marketing your business completely during the crisis, will everyone forget all about you?
I think some tech companies are getting a taste of their own medicine. They have been preaching to their market about how they need to adopt new tech if they are to stay ahead, but during Covid-19, many of them have dropped marketing altogether and run for cover. To be honest, I haven’t heard a peep out of some companies, both large and small.
Did they go out of business? Did they have so much cash that they could simply afford to sit tight? Did the CFO gleefully strike marketing off the list? Or did everyone go home and just forget to keep in touch? I imagine it is some or all of these reasons that explain their disappearance.
Please don’t take this as a sales pitch from me to urge tech companies to keep on marketing. I could give a c**p frankly; if they don’t see the importance of keeping up the comms with customers, prospects and the wider market, I’m not going to be the one to say I told you so after this is all over.
I’m going to do that right now
My clients have all, in their various ways, amazed me at how they have responded to their retail clients during the crisis. Almost all of them have switched to 24/7 response and I don’t mean just in the call centre. Others have frozen or delayed their charges, or even suspended them for three months. And all of them have not hesitated to throw the rule book out in order to get stuck in and get the job done.
They’re the good guys. Some companies I know have behaved shockingly and I sincerely hope this comes back to bite them in the future. I have certainly canceled quite a few contracts with companies that were happy to take my money during the good times and then insist on payment in full, on time, for a reduced service.
So in a crisis, you get to see the best as well as the worst in people, which is why I think from now on, we will start to be much pickier about who we work with and how. What is my link to marketing? If you are one of the good guys, you need to tell someone what you did. It’s not about being arrogant or displaying a lack of modesty, it’s about sharing stories of the good things you and your clients did together.
Stories reveal the true nature of an organisation. If they sound insincere, stilted or self-congratulatory, then that reveals what may be missing from the organisation and its culture. Don’t think of it as marketing, just think of it as a conversation among friends.
If you don’t have a story to tell, what might this say about you and your organisation?
Please share your stories, and we will publish the best ones on www.retailconnections.co.uk
