Lockdown is easing across the UK: shops are opening, local attractions and hotels are preparing for visitors, and pubs are stocking up on cider.

But what does this mean for brands and their marketing?

Over the past three months, marketing managers quickly had to pivot from ‘business as usual’ to creating content showing what their brand was doing ‘in this troubling time’. Now, as we begin to restart the economy, the time has come to change your strategy and marketing tactics again.

Not quite sure how? Here are four questions you should ask yourself to help you think through and plan how your marketing should run during the second half of 2020. 

1. What are your objectives?

Marketers in different sectors are facing very different challenges.

For many big retail brands, the focus is to ‘get back’ the customers who have not been able/wanting to spend during lockdown - due to their shops being closed. Here, the objective will be to showcase how the brand is now ‘open for business’ and clearly communicate what has been put in place to make their business environment ‘safe’ (more on that later).

For SMEs and local businesses (i.e. corner shops, butchers, bakers), and online retailers who have seen a huge boom during lockdown, the objective will be to retain that business. A whopping 59% of the Great British public used more local stores and businesses to help them during lockdown, so the emphasis will be on persuading customers to stay with them now the ‘big shops’ have re-opened, and items that may not have been available before (we’re looking at you, toilet paper, milk and flour!) are now stocked everywhere.

The same research revealed that 57% intend to continue using locally produced products - and to a greater extent than they did pre-lockdown - so the aim for those businesses will be to keep driving home what makes ‘buying local’ so good.

Service providers - those working in insurance or utility marketing for example – may find they are still almost in limbo. They remained ‘open for business’ during lockdown, and their objectives haven’t drastically changed. The focus here will be more on changing the messaging behind their communications… so no more ‘in these unprecedented times’.

2. Do you know understand your customers’ current appetite to shop?

We’re all (painfully) aware of the fact that a great deal has been put on hold over the past three months. Holidays have been cancelled, luxury purchases scrapped or postpone and there was even talk of the DFS sale ending (!).

Taking into account all of the economic circumstances, businesses will be eager to know how consumer behaviours and their appetite to buy has altered.

GlobalWebIndex found that many in the UK put off a purchase due to the COVID-19 outbreak. These included purchases such as holidays/trips (44%), clothing (25%), a new car/vehicle (14%), home appliances and furnishings (13% for each) and taking out insurance (5%).

Of these, the public said that holidays and clothing would be the purchases they would prioritise - post-lockdown - with 12% saying they would shop for these as soon as the outbreak began to decrease in their country… which is about now.

Alongside this, there is the question of how keen people really are to return to physical stores? The above research found that 16% plan to return to non-essential shops ‘immediately’, whilst 17% want to return ‘very quickly’ to shops – demonstrating that there is some appetite for this. However, a third of consumers (32%) do not plan to visit non-essential shops ‘for some time’ after they re-open.

While some people do plan to return to physical stores immediately, 46% of internet users say they’ll be shopping more online after the outbreak is over. It means that there is pressure on businesses to know what their customers want and need, understand those needs and wants - and adapt accordingly. At the moment, you cannot pivot fully back to ‘offline mode’ if the majority of people are still scared to visit physical stores. So, it’s important for companies to invest time in learning what their existing customers want - and which tactics and strategies might attract new ones.

3. Physical store? …What adjustments/adaptations for safety are you putting in place?

It might seem obvious, but it’s essential to factor information into your marketing to explain the measures your company is taking to keep employees and customers safe.

Research from Deloitte Digital found that 62% of the public are more likely to spend money at a business that takes extra steps to ensure the safety and well-being of their employees once lockdown restrictions have lifted.

So, whether you’re putting stickers on the floor to mark a 2m (or 1m) distance, installing Perspex dividers, only allowing a certain amount of people in a store or venue at one time, providing hand sanitiser stations, or disinfecting and deep cleaning more regularly, letting your customers know about this provides the reassurance they need to have the confidence to shop with you.

With many likely to be worried about how shopping, getting a haircut or going to a restaurant will ‘look like’, including actual photographs of your new set-up can be helpful to dissuade fears too.

4. What have businesses learned in the last three months?

It would be easy to switch back to exactly what you were doing in January and February, but that is likely to be an unwise move for your business.

Whilst it might be reasonable to put less of a focus on COVID-19 in your marketing communications over the upcoming months, it’s important to keep it in mind and keep an empathetic mindset. For example, it could be that your bank of images of huge gatherings now make people uncomfortable, or that your brand’s tone of voice slightly ‘jars’ with customers now.

Take a second to review anything you had planned, but also look back and see if anything in particular performed well over the past few months and should be continued. For example, it may be that during lockdown a small café which couldn’t open shared a weekly recipe across social media. If this content got a fantastic reaction, this could be something that continues post-lockdown, albeit on a less regular basis.

The last three months were unprecedented, yes, and no doubt many marketers gained a grey hair or two, but it also gave us a fantastic opportunity to flex our creativity -forcing us all to think of new solutions to a new problem. And if there are any learnings that can be taken from that - great!

We don’t know how long this crisis will last; both in terms of the prevalence of the disease and its effects on the economy/our daily lives. There’s no doubt that 2020 has become a turning point for how people transact with businesses, so the best thing marketers can do is to keep their eyes and ears open.

The brands who listen to what their customers and clients want, and move their ways of working to match this, will - as always - come out on top.

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