With COVID-19 causing unimaginable losses around the world, businesses are also grappling to find new ideas and solutions to sustain in the market. The battle seemed to be overwhelming, but as a known fact, where there is gloom, there is also gleam. Every business with that ray of hope, has to address the elephant in the room and find new approaches to reach out to the customer without offending them.
There are specific do’s and don’ts that as a marketer you have to look into before sending an email to the recipient:
Showing Compassion:
Irrespective of our color, religion, nationality, the one thing that binds all of us is that we are human. In this critical time, we have to understand, along with doing business, you have to show empathy to your fellow beings and customers.
Check out the below example:
Image Courtesy: CampaignMonitor
The email is a perfect example of how the CEO of the company is reaching out to the customers, with the information about a readjustment of their business operations. It shows they value their customers. In the end, the message, ‘pandemic has made us come together to rally our greatest strength, the human spirit,’ shows that we all are one and united as a human race.
Avoid Panic Sending Of Emails:
As business revenue goes down, many companies are sending bulk sales emails to the customers. You might lose your customer, if you are doing so. The deluge of emails in the recipient’s inbox could prompt him to spam your email.
In the current scenario, a marketer, should understand the psychology of the customer. They are struggling for the basic needs, and your sales email could ward off many of them. It’s not that you have to stop your marketing campaign completely, but accordingly, plan the schedule and content. A right content and frequency of sending emails is the key to success during COVID-19 crisis.
Check the below example of a customer, who posted a comment:
Image Courtesy: CampaignMonitor
This again is a reminder, that customers would be unforgiving during this time. You thus have to be very careful while crafting and sending any COVID-19 email.
Attracting People To Your Website:
While you can send the right number of emails to the recipients, but do ensure they also visit your website. Your website acts as the provider of huge information to the customers that you cannot provide in an email.
For example, the website has different sections for blogs, articles, whitepapers, infographics, news, etc. that gives a concise picture of your industry expertise and knowledge. In an email, you can just include selected information. As a marketer, your goal is to impress your customers and convince them about the quality of your service or product, and that has to be carried out professionally. So, make your effort less aggressive and more effective by attracting more prospects to your website. You can do this by including the link to your website in the email.
Adding The Precise Content:
It’s not only you who is in a dilemma about what to do next during these uncertain times, but even the consumers are also confused about the uncertain future. So, you have to make it easy for them.
Do not send emails that do not convey the message clearly. You have to understand the mental state of the consumers as they would have less patience to read the content that revolves around a vague story without conveying the actual message.
Inculcating Hope:
Always try to create content that gives confidence to your customer. They are also in the same boat as you, so you should make them as comfortable as possible by sending content that the best is yet to come, and humanity would overcome these difficult times.
The below example is of ASDA, a British supermarket retailer, that crafted such message:
Image Courtesy: Econsultancy
Have Frequent Communication With The Right Content:
Not sending too many emails does not mean that you need not send any emails and become completely silent. There are brands that have done so, much to the disappointment of the customers.
You should avoid falling in the same pitfall!!!
People are going to talk about the brand and judge it through the ways they presented and created an image of themselves during this time.
Innovating New Style Of Content Format:
As a marketer, you have to be innovative and always try new styles of content for implementing in your marketing campaign so that the customer does not get bored out. This action should also be executed during this time, as the majority of the stay at home customers would be surely pleased to see your fresh ideas.
For Example: The Yale University’s ‘The Science of Well-being” online course for free is something new for any learner. The Ivy League course promotion grabbed much eye-balls; although the free online course was not created due to the COVID-19 situation, but the scenario resulted in the increase in popularity of the course.
This is a lesson for the marketers, they can try such new techniques in developing new content ideas to reach out to the prospects.
Conclusion:
Along with executing the business operations, an organization should always have the idea of the do’s and don’ts approaches to be followed while reaching out to the potential customers in this scenario. It’s like walking on a tight rope, and there is a fine line between being overly salesy and executing promotional activities as usual.
You have to tone down your promotional activities and also align with the emotional needs of the customers. The above blog chalks out some of the essential points to be included in your strategy so that you do not commit the same mistake which other businesses did. Maintaining a good relationship with your customers is the need of the hour, and you have to seriously consider developing the right email marketing strategy designed for the current scenario.
