‘Play your part and play it well’: Growth marketer Tam Al-Saad shares how businesses can weather the COVID-19 storm
Ahead of next week’s webinar Tam Al-Saad, Head of Growth for Web Profits, shares his insights into the state of play for marketers right now, and the strategies businesses should be implementing to stay on-track.
Web Profits and Mumbrella Bespoke will be running a live webinar titled ‘First Principles: How to market during the COVID-19 pandemic’ on Tuesday, 7th of April at 12pm, to register follow the link.
About a month ago, when the ASX dropped by 9 or 10%, we gathered our leadership teams across marketing and sales. We knew our clients were headed for trouble – whether because of COVID-19 itself or an ensuing economic recession. Immediately, we looked in greater detail at our performance with our clients. When budgets are tight, the first thing to go is third-party services. Then we moved to the sectors we thought would be impacted by COVID-19, and then made a broader list of clients who would be vulnerable to a wider economic recession.
Even though our information wasn’t perfect, this process enabled us to go out to clients with a message. Rather than waiting until they were already struggling, we could say, “we know this is likely to hurt you – how can we help?” In some instances, on the strength of those early talks, clients have gone to bat for us with their boards or international marketing departments to justify their investment in Web Profits. And we’ve also looked internally, at what we offer as a business and how it matches our clients’ needs in this environment. We’re currently developing new products and services, which is something I would suggest all businesses look to.
There are two messages running counter right now. One is the need for businesses to continue advertising, and the second is the need for a high level of pragmatism to be applied to the bottom line. I think what we have to remember is that marketing starts with the customer and providing them with what they want. And we need to acknowledge that right now, what somebody wants today is very different from what they may have wanted last week or the week before.
Right now is the time to go back to the drawing board. There is a need to re-examine current customers, because their needs have transformed and so have they. Look at who your customer is now and what they need now and start from there.
In some respects, these rapidly evolving consumer needs and expectations are nothing new. What is happening now is that we’re seeing those shifts condensed into a very tight time frame because individual circumstances are changing day to day rather than month to month.
Because of that, there is less sense than ever in flying into the market with the same messaging. There’s no sense in saying, “we’re doing okay right now, so we’ll keep doing what we’re doing” or “this has worked in the past.” My early career was in the start-up space. When you’re working in that area – especially when your focus is on growth, you get used to things changing very quickly and needing the capacity to respond very rapidly. The ability to make a decision on something not working and being able to immediately replace it was a mindset that has become increasingly valuable to digital businesses and is essential right now.
If you have any questions for Tam ahead of next week’s webinar, you can enter them when you register via this link.
This isn’t a game of winners and losers – we’re seeing movement between sectors and will continue to. Some businesses are doing well in this environment. We work with a national NBN provider who prides themselves on excellent customer service and a great product. We’re finding a lot of people are switching to them because they can provide targeted assistance and support. Just yesterday, a colleague found Telstra had switched off his internet – they told him because of the high volume of calls they were dealing with, they might not be able to get to his ticket for a little while. He immediately changed providers. A premium internet connection in your home has moved from being a “nice to have” to an urgent non-negotiable. In other sectors, there has been a more spotted impact. Property and real estate were performing solidly until open houses and auctions were off the cards. That transformed that sector overnight.
The brands that are ready to adapt quickly when changes occur are the ones that will survive. These changes might benefit you one week and devastate you the next, you just have to be ready.
A lot of speakers at Mumbrella’s Travel Summit touched on how they were approaching ad spend over the next period. Some companies were saying they were going to pause all marketing and focus on building a war chest. That is an option if you have large cash reserves. If you don’t – and I think most brands are in this position, it’s simply not. And even for the larger brands that can afford to do that, it’s not necessarily the best option. We have looked at some case studies around how the travel sector responded to the SARS and MERES epidemics. Travel as a sector has been hit like this before, so there is some interesting data there. What you see is that hotels that survived, and even thrived, in those epidemics were the ones who continued to market and, rather than cutting staff, pivoted their service offering.
Pivoting is harder than hibernating, and it’s more important. The first instinct for most is to be conservative and hold on to what you have. We’ve seen that reaction from consumers and brands are no different. Some brands are saying, “we don’t have money, we need to pull everything.” But what you’re guaranteeing then is you won’t change anything. You should be asking yourself what your customer needs, how you can get it to them, and if that’s a possibility before you make those kinds of decisions. If you answer yes to the first two questions, but you have already cut your staff and your spending, you’re not in a position to action anything. You need to retain relationships with consumers through your staff and keep the ideas engine running. So think about the customer first, then operate within the constraints of your business. Don’t just panic and cut all perceived shackles.
I think marketers need to remember that change is the only constant. We can look at historic modeling for pandemics. However, it is crucial to recognize that businesses have exploded or collapsed due to factors outside their control before. The internet was catastrophic for some business-models – video stores, for example, were pushed out completely by streaming services. But other business models, like e-commerce, flourished. Change can come at any time and in any way.
What brands can do right now, no matter their circumstances is look at their messaging. Brands need to focus on communicating why they’re valuable, why they’re relevant, and how they can help people. Because everybody right now is looking for help – marketers just need to understand where their brands can provide that help. It’s not about trying to create relevance with social media activity that tells people to wash their hands – nobody wants to see a marketing agency telling them how to wash their hands. Instead, think about your position in the current environment and the role your brand or business can play and then play it well.
Tam Al-Saad will be appearing in an exclusive webinar, titled ‘First Principles: How to market during the COVID-19 pandemic’, Tuesday, 7th of April at 12pm, to register follow the link.