Question

Is marketing planning worth the effort, especially in the current rapidly changing external/macro-environment? it is a presentation should have 15 slides and recent references

Answer 1

Customers never know how a company’s finance or Human Resources department responds to a major unpredicted event, but marketing is center stage, its moves is reflected in each and every ad campaign, message and channel. One can set the tone for how customers perceive the brand during a difficult time. Hence, proper marketing planning becomes essential in these current times of the Covid Pandemic.

Taking the right actions can be challenging, especially in a fast-changing situation. All companies should operate with integrity and trust even as they are under pressure from a swiftly evolving situation. Those with a product or service well-suited for difficult times must tread lightly, lest customers think they’re exploiting the tragedy.

Marketers shouldn’t be waiting for problems to develop or the market to point in a clear direction before making plans and taking action. Instead, they should follow a four-step action plan to define scenarios, monitor customers and plan for marketing changes.

Planning the scenario-

They need to define theoretical best, worst and moderate scenarios that could play out during the crisis from the business perspective, its customers and critical partners. They should work with peers in other departments like HR and finance to develop the scenarios as they apply overall to the business.

Marketing should not rely only on the high-level corporate scenarios, but must go further for their department and brand. Marketers must drill down to identify those specific challenges that customers, the brand and the marketing organization could experience in each scenario and identify actions to take. E.g. if the best case “business as usual” scenario involves ad purchases during the Tokyo Olympics or an industry trade show, a worst-case scenario can be in which that event is canceled and they should identify alternative ways to reach customers.

Listening to Customer Sentiment and Analysing their Behavior-

Long before the coronavirus began, consumer trust in both government and large brands had eroded to a considerable amount. People now align more closely with their family, friends and local businesses. The current crisis seems set to amplify the distrust customers have of brands. Brands can push against this wave by rising to the occasion to reestablish trust through customer-centric actions.

-The marketers should now listen more than ever. It is important to know what a customer feel and does and why. Arrange voice of the customer (VoC) programs to listen for references to COVID-19 or other shifts. Employ social listening to monitor customer discussions about health concerns or information needs relevant to the brand. Proactively ask sales and account management teams what they hear from the front lines. KKeep a close check on customer care mails, phone calls and service chats for changes in concerns or sentiment.

-They should also balance their response. Marketers must support customers and protect customer relationships while also staying honest about what the firm can and cannot deliver at this time. They should be careful about taking actions that provide short-term gain for the firm at the expense of customer trust.

Anticipating impacts on Operations-

Challenges to product and service delivery generally increase during crisis. Closed factories and disrupted supply chains create reduced supply on one end of the business, while customer questions create rising service demand on the other end. Marketers must adapt their plans to reflect on the ground realities while staying true to the brand’s values. Some steps that can be taken-

-Set very realistic expectations about service levels, launch dates, product availability etc. Consider pulling ad campaigns for products you are not sure you can produce and deliver. Evaluate t he current policies and consider changes, e.g allowing cancellations or extending payment terms.

- Create sufficient capacity to address customer service volumes. They should craft proactive messages to distribute via email, social media and the web to answer the commonly raised questions. Also should draft reactive scripts to help customer service handle sensitive one-on-one interactions. Train qualified team members in functions with lower volume to help manage demand from the customer service channels.

- Marketers should ramp up digital delivery. Actively promote apps and other mobile tools and services. They should also ramp up capacity for online transactions and digital interactions. Innovate different ways to deliver the product or aspects of it online, i.e telemedicine for routine doctor visits or online learning for millions of students who will be out of school. Yet, even as digital options are enabled, understand that some people will always need to hear an empathetic human voice, especially during this time, and be prepared to offer it.

- Marketers should optimize the marketing budget. All organizational functions to be called on to prioritize spending and should try to avoid across-the-board cuts. Look instead for ways to drive efficiency and to reduce or postpone obligations that won’t bring any value in the current environment.

Adapting the marketing plan-

The next few months will bring many societal changes that will trickle down to the marketing plan. Hence, marketers will need to use the best, worst and moderate-case scenarios to anticipate possible and likely changes and take alternative actions. Some areas of focus are-

- Event-based programs: Restrictions on large gatherings are cutting into those businesses that serve these events and the marketers that theme their campaigns around these gatherings. Hence, there is a need to develop alternative marketing ideas now for physical events that were planned for spring and summer. Sports events can move to streaming delivery; conference expos can move online and so on. They should not wait until an event is canceled to develop a plan. They should instead learn from the experience of others who have experienced this, e.g. a health IT conference that is normally held in early March: The organization was canceled and promise was made to hold a virtual event at some point in the future. A day later, 1upHealth went and announced its own virtual event for the following week.

- Delivering compelling content- More people will be spending time at home over the next few months. Brands can provide lighthearted, uplifting, informative and encouraging content to people looking for support. This is also a good time to bring out escapist experiments such as VR content.

- Securing the media early: Everyone is sailing in the same boat and looking to secure key spots to replace lost opportunities. In the U.S., brandsmay have to compete with the U.S. presidential political campaigns for key media placement. Marketers need to work with media planners and publishers to secure access before they are crowded out.