Marketing for the crisis
In these difficult times for everyone, it is important to know how to adjust the sails to continue sailing and not sink into this ocean of inconveniences.
The biggest mistake that many companies are making today is cutting budgets in the marketing department, this being the best tool they have to predict transforming their company according to their needs.
Both strategic and operational marketing is essential, especially at this time. Marketing is not a business expense, it is an investment to achieve our objectives. Being such a broad concept, where it is not easy to clarify its principles, its functions, and much less its dimensions, marketing can help us in practice to achieve our objectives.
If we want to strengthen our competitiveness, first of all, we have to carry out an analysis of our situation, understand how our environment, our clients, our market, our partners, our competition, etc ... have behaved.
For them, we have to start by performing a SWOT analysis, studying our weaknesses, threats, strengths, and opportunities. This is one of the key tools to position ourselves on the current map.
In order to create a company strategy defined in a marketing plan that allows us to adapt and stay in the game, it is important to know and understand our environment and how it has evolved in the last year in which all sectors have undergone so many changes. We live in a changing world, but in this last year, there are sectors that have evolved 5 years in 5 months and others that have regressed.
Thanks to the information that we can gather by conducting this analysis, we can make much more realistic plans that can show us the future of our company without having to consult the crystal ball. In addition, at this time, the plans must be absolutely dynamic and creative, optimizing resources to the maximum and being able to adapt to changes if necessary without losing track of our objectives at any time.
We can change our strategy in the short term but keeping our objectives in the medium / long term.
Where has the crisis left us?
If we have carried out a thorough analysis, at this point we should know where we are today, with real and objective data.
With this information in hand, it's time to decide our next goals, build customer loyalty, generate new ones, internationalize the company, etc ...
To achieve these objectives we have to draw up a strategic plan that helps us achieve these objectives, and for this, we have to define strategic marketing exactly before turning it into operational marketing.
We can use a classic tool known as the 7P that I will explain in more detail in another specific article for this technique, due to its importance and extension. Explore new opportunities for your business.
The important thing at this time is knowing how to adapt to this changing environment and survive within it, we cannot and must not lock ourselves in previous results or in rigid and strict plans that in all probability will lead us to failure.
Once we define the strategy to follow, we can only put it into practice with all our efforts, we have to push the ship with all our energies since it depends on whether we continue to float or sink. Obviously, in the marketing plan, you have to be very creative so as not to exhaust your resources.
For example, if before we invested a certain amount in holding events and attending fairs, now that it is an almost prohibited activity around the world, perhaps it is time to optimize that expense and invest it in channels with lower expenses but just as effective as is the Online Marketing.
In addition, Online Marketing allows us to reach a global market without leaving our office, reducing costs and allowing us to segment our target audience in an absolutely precise way.
As I said, this may be one of the tools that your company decides to use within its strategic plan, but there are many more that true marketing professionals know and can apply in a creative way in order to help your company move forward...
Another key to marketing and much more at this time, with a very changing environment, is the measurement of results in the short and medium-term, to be able to continue adjusting the sails, not to sail aimlessly and end up lost in an ocean-like Tom Hanks in the movie Castaway.
