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Opinion

Why Brands should connect while Social Distancing?

Oshin Kamble 6 Stories

Wednesday April 15, 2020 , 5 min Read

Brands should connect while Social Distancing, Here’s why

With the lockdown, a lot of brands have paused on their marketing. The logic being – if nobody is allowed to go out, nobody can purchase, leading to no sales, no profit and there is no point spending extra on marketing. When you think about it this way the logic makes sense. But the things we are failing to notice is, everyone has free time in their hands, all content that’s pushed out is going to catch more eyeballs. The brands that are going to continue to catch the attention of the potential customers during the lockdowns are the brands that are going to have the most leads, once the people are out on their shopping spree. Here are 4 reasons Why Brands should connect while Social Distancing.

To maintain continuity

When brands decide to pause on the marketing, they lose brand awareness, brand recognition, they allow their competitors to have a lead, additionally keeping all their social media platforms empty. When they return after almost a month of absence, lose the grip. Their on-going campaigns before the lockdown won’t have a similar impact, most importantly it will be like starting again and not continuing. It’s understandable that brands don’t want to promote themselves in these trying times, that is when they instruct their agencies to figure a way to promote content that promotes the brand and doesn’t hurt the public sentiment.

Recall value

Since people are not going out, how will they remember the brand? TV ads and Newspaper ads are way more expensive than digital ads, I’m assuming, there would be a budget constraint. Would brands, big or small be okay with being forgotten? My guess, no. Digital presence is the easiest way to maintain recall value. All brands can continue pushing out content, making their audience feel their presence and ensuring that they do not forget about the brand when they are making their next purchase decision.

Giving back to the audience

It makes sense if the brand doesn’t want to promote its products or services, with the pause in deliveries, you can save the content for later. But what about awareness posts? Brands with thousands of followers have a way to reach so many people. Brands can work in different ways to increase COVID-19 awareness among the audience. Find newer ways to amuse the audience, provide them with relatable content, put up engaging posts, help keep their audience occupied. Brands can promote topical content that can be fun, aim in creating a trend or pushing trends.

Be a step ahead of the competition

Since the normal approach is to wait for things to settle, be laid back, brands can choose a way to be more out there, if all your competitors are going to stop reaching out to their audience, you are literally the sole targeter. Reaching your audience has never been easier. Anything you push out will be unopposed. Your audience won’t have anything to compare it with. Don’t miss out on this golden opportunity.

Here are a few suggestions on how Brands should connect while Social Distancing

Discount in return for late delivery:

Do you know why Amazon is such a genius, they have their audience figured out. Prime, if you want your order as soon as possible. Rewards, if you want your order as delayed as possible. Use the latter strategy. Do NOT stop your customers from ordering, instead encourage them into order. Tell them that if they choose a later delivery offer, they can avail a discount. The only thing people love more than gifts is easy ways of saving money. That way, you’ll get sales, your orders will get delivered when times are better. Win-win.

Engaging Giveaways:

People love free stuff. And people love winning. Put up fun engaging giveaways, ask your audience to comment, share, make them think. Reward them, give free goodies. The power of free stuff will surprise you. With this, your engagement will increase, your audience will talk about you, share your page and product and in return, you’ll be giving them a gift. Giveaway is a tested strategy, it always works. Trust me on that.

Vouchers for winners:

Have contests on your page give away 100 Rs, 200 Rs, 500 Rs, 1000 Rs, so on, off vouchers to the winners. The vouchers can be credited only on their next purchase. That way you’ll be promoting your brand, giving back to your audience and you’ll definitely have a few people who’ll be eager to shop from your website.

Relatable content

Create content that is relatable to the current scenario, awareness of COVID-19, related to trending TV shows, board games, relate it to everything people can do during the lockdown. Every big brand posted about/for the 9 mins of candle/diya at 9 pm, on 5th April. They figured a way to reach their audience’s heart, promote awareness and show togetherness. While the others missed out on a chance to provide their audience with good content.

It’s rightly said, content is king. But nobody can deny that distribution is queen. We live in a world where not many have the time to create good content and a lot of forms of distribution are expensive. Luckily with the lockdown, we are having a lot of time in hand and thanking the digital wave, social media is almost free. Smart people, will lay low, be considerate and wait till better days are here. Smarter people know these are the better days and they will pave their own path towards the best times and not miss out on this opportunity.