Building your Brand in Uncertain Times
On Friday, March 20th, dozens of founders and marketers from the FUEL portfolio dialed into a Zoom call for a frank conversation about how to manage marketing in the age of coronavirus. Jamie Viggiano, Fuel’s Chief Marketing Officer, invited marketing virtuoso Sumaiya Balbale (Jet.com, Shake Shack) to tackle the toughest questions about running a brand in the age of coronavirus.
Up for discussion? Questions like: How do we promote our business without seeming tone deaf? How can we provide support and comfort to our customers? What role does marketing play in helping the whole company shift to this new reality? How do we plan for a very uncertain future?
You can listen to the full webinar below.
Below are the most actionable takeaways from that discussion.
#1 Consider your brand’s relevance in this moment.
When thinking about how to promote your business without seeming tone deaf, it’s critical to consider your brand’s relevance in this moment. Relevance means something different to Lysol now than it does to KFC. What does it mean to your brand? Consider your sector as well as the products and services you offer. Do you fit in? If so, in what way?
This crisis sees some brands operating close to their core offerings (like grocery retailers communicating dedicated shopping hours for senior citizens), but it also sees brands operating outside of their core scope (like luxury and liquor brands shifting production focus to making hand sanitizer). When considering the relevance of your own brand, think about the functional information you need to communicate to your customers that’s relevant to this time. But don’t forget to think about the resources, tools, and abilities you bring to the world broadly. You might identify an opportunity to really serve your communities - and brands are ultimately only as strong as the relationships and connections they have with the communities they serve.
And as for that pervasive “is this tone deaf?” question: Anything that feels like it’s taking advantage, probably is. If you’re about to send out a communication that gives you pause, trust that instinct.
#2 Evaluate your in-market assets.
One of the most tactical things any brand can do immediately is to evaluate all in-market assets. All those automated emails, upcoming blog posts, ads, and pre-programmed tweets? Screen them for anything that’s off-tone or offensive. If you feel like you’re too close to your business, ask the partners or roommates that are quarantined at home with you to take a look. Brands that forget to do this basic “cleaning up” activity are asking for totally avoidable trouble.
#3 Question your values.
Today, brands have to be internally and externally consistent - this is an authentic “making moment” for your brand and for your marketing. Look at your values, your mission, your purpose. In this time of crisis, are your actions in line with that ethos? Are the principles behind your brand working for this process, or do you need to re-evaluate? Oftentimes, brands create their company values in a vacuum. They might sound nice or look good painted on an office wall - but are they giving you the structure you need to get to the other side of this thing? Look at this as a strategic moment that will help you communicate with authenticity. Too often for this type of work, the excuse is “I don’t have time.” - well, now you do.
#4 Prioritize deepening relationships.
The question on every marketer’s mind right now should be - how do we get to the other side of this with a greater sense of loyalty? To answer this, you have to consider what the relationship journey looks like with the customers you already have. Recognize that their daily lives look totally different today than they did a few weeks ago, and with those changes in behavior and habits come changes in mindset. Prioritize building a real understanding of their new realities, so you can speak to them within that context. A genuine understanding of your customers will bleed through in your tone, and anchor a more authentic approach to communicating as we move through this crisis.
#5 Pay attention to the bottom of the pyramid.
Marketing often sits at the very top of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Way up there in the pointy self-actualization box. The reality of this crisis is that many of your customers have reverted waaay back to the bottom of the pyramid. Safety and security are front-of-mind, and many things that seemed valuable before seem frivolous by comparison today. Keeping the pyramid in mind can help you adjust your messaging, tone, and actions to better serve your customers where they are today.
#6 Don’t undervalue delight.
People are trapped at home, spending more time on devices than ever before. There’s stress, monotony, anxiety, and a lot of downtime. A little spark of delight can cut through all that. Think of the lives happening behind the Zoom screens. Your customers, your partners, and your employees. Reflecting on how you can create a little smile can win you loyalty that lasts. Maybe it’s a care package to your top customers or a “bring your dog to Zoom” meeting once a week - whatever the method, a little delight goes a long way in dark times. Understanding the humans involved in your business and making a genuine effort to connect with them can keep paying dividends into the future.
#7 Service the rest of your team.
Marketing is one of the places in an organization where massive creativity sits. How do you point those capabilities inward during this time? The internal constituent matters now. Look around at the rest of the business - where are the bottlenecks? Are supply chains being impacted? Is the sales team struggling to adjust to pitching clients via Zoom? Is morale low? Leadership sometimes requires stepping out of your function and seeing where you can lend a hand.
#8 Game out scenarios.
Given the volatility of the time, there’s not much use in attempting to plan out new KPIs and expect to hit them. Not one of us understands how to predict the future. Rather, the go-forward approach should be centered around scenario planning. Game out a couple of scenarios to get a sense of how you need to adjust your financial models and objectives. It’s easy to lose focus and get lost in a thousand different metrics, but gaming out scenarios helps reveal the most sensitive metrics to move your business forward. We’re going to get past this crisis - there will be another side. But the reality is that a lot of companies won’t see it. Using this moment to align your team on the inputs that actually matter is one of the most powerful moves you can make to bolster your chances of making it through.