Communicate with your customers!
In a crisis, your customers need reassurance that you are doing everything you can to support them and deliver value. In fact, this may be an ideal moment to improve aspects of your business like customer service and let your customers know!
Communicate with your employees!
Even if you can’t give specifics, your employees want to know their managers are thinking about how to tackle the economic challenges their company faces. If you don’t talk, the rumour mill will.
Invest
Research shows that companies that increased their marketing efforts during previous recessions gained market share during the upturn. Businesses that increased their marketing budgets did significantly better than companies who made cuts or those who simply maintained their spend.
Do things differently
It’s easy to retreat into familiar ways of doing things, but why not treat this as a moment to try something new. If you find yourself with space to think, use it creatively!
Be balanced
For most of us, the downturn holds opportunities as well as challenges. Identify them, act on them and share that positive energy. And if you are communicating bad news, make sure it’s clear, honest and complete.
Be visionary
You have a strategy, a business plan, professional development goals – they may need some short-term adaptation, but keep the future in view and your communication in line with your long-term objectives.
Tell a good story
Information appeals to the intellect; stories appeal to our emotions. If you turn your communication into a good story, people will remember it better.
Measure and prove
If you’re a marketer, make sure your organization understands the value of what you do. At times like these, it’s important to speak the language of the financial decision makers. Get to grips with financial and economic issues, and show your worth through quantified results – whether web click-throughs, lead generation, press clippings or any other metrics relevant to your business.
