How have you been handling your marketing communications this month? With the world on hold, it’s tempting to hunker down and wait for permission to get back out there. But even if we aren’t doing business as usual, relationship building carries on – whether we make an effort or not.
It can be tempting to pull back and wait. To wait until things get back to normal and then resume our normal marketing. But if we do not continue to engage with the people we serve, relationships wither and could be lost.
Another strategy is to simply carry on with whatever we had already planned. But the “normal” marketing I’ve seen from some companies these lasts few weeks doesn’t always sit well with the anxiety we are all feeling.
Setting the right tone
It’s hard to know what to say, and how to say it, when the world is in crisis. Yet, it’s important to stay in touch. It is equally important that your marketing message isn’t ‘tone-deaf’ during this crisis. Email messages and even website content needs to strike the right tone.
These last few weeks I’ve been helping my clients adjust their tone and message – pivoting away from prepared customer communications and adjusting tone in email messages and on websites to be sensitive to the anxiety we are all feeling right now. I’ve also been helping them increase their outreach through social media. Social media provides the perfect platform to stay in touch and provide support and connection, from wherever you are.
Theresa Guitierrez Jacobs at Advomatic, provides a really good explanation of this, along with a checklist for reviewing your website in light of COVID-19 in her blog post What must your website convey right now? .
If you don’t have the bandwidth to make sure your messaging is striking the right tone, give me a call. I’m here for you. I am happy to review an email message, recommend updates to webpages, or help with social media posts.
Lynne Brown is a Montessori mom and educator. With experience and training as a Montessori toddler teacher and administrator, her writing and consulting services help schools and businesses build strong relationships. She specializes in improving web content and social media content. Need help? Schedule a call and let’s chat.