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In times of financial uncertainty (such as the current COVID-19 crisis), the first thing most businesses do is cut costs to free up some cash. This may be an essential move to keep your business viable, but don’t make the mistake most businesses make when under financial pressure. The article will show you some tips on doing marketing during critical times. 

1 – First tip is content.

Firstly you should consume way less content. The world is an overwhelming and noisy place. Stay as informed as you need to be to maintain your safety but avoid becoming a consumer.

Resources might become tighter and your ability to do things like networking, advertising or events will likely diminish. Your ability to create content doesn’t cost money and doesn’t need to be disrupted. Turn it up.

Content reaches beyond social isolation and it works while you don’t. It overcomes geography and allows you to connect with people who need to hear what you have to say.

Creating good content in written, audio or video form allows you to continue investing in your business while also being as helpful as you can to your audience and customer. It’s also building a legacy content foundation in your business which will allow a much faster recovery once the air clears and the dust settles.

2 – Go big on idea generation.

Crisis demands creativity. You’re going to face challenges and situations you never have before. Starting a few daily practises to build your creative and idea generation muscles will, I promise, give some very surprising results.

In James Althucher’s book ‘Choose Yourself’ he speaks about his daily practises. While I urge you to ready the whole book and consider all his daily practises, one in particular is something I use with clients all the time.

Buy a simple small notebook. One of those ring bound supermarket pocket sized ones. Every day write ten ideas in it. You can choose, every day, what the topic of the ideas is. One day it might be ten ideas for ways to say thank you to customers and the next day you might write ten ways to make your garden look nicer.

The 10 ideas a day practise might sound simple but it quickly stimulates the unconscious into understanding that you value ideas and when you need them they come more easily.

3 – Reassess your level of courage. 

Crisis demands courage. When times are easy we get complacent and it’s easy to coast. In a crisis, what worked before stops working or just isn’t available. If you want to survive you’re going to need to do things you did’t do before.

There’s a formula at work in digital marketing that your returns go up and costs go down in direct proportion to your willingness to be visible and express yourself. For a very small number of people that’s easy. For the rest of us it triggers fear.

 Professional rescuers and those for whom extreme situations are more routine know that through training, practise and experience, fear can be managed. You need to bring this attitude to your business marketing and start stretching your comfort zone.

4 – In times of crisis you need knowledge.

Taking your learning in hand. We’re in for a tough time ahead and while, what you know got you so far in business, don’t make the mistake of being complacent and assume it will continue to do so.

Things are likely to get very competitive and survival skills matter. I’d argue that your ability to connect with your customer just became a survival skill and assuming you have all the answers might just be fatal for your business.

So in conclusion, we need to rethink our business models, certainly, but we also need to rethink how we’re connecting to customers.In times of financial uncertainty (such as the current COVID-19 crisis), the first thing most businesses do is cut costs to free up some cash. This may be an essential move to keep your business viable, but don’t make the mistake most businesses make when under financial pressure.