| | JULY 202119By communicating regularly one can become that source of truth or valid information. This obvi-ously leads to better customer stickiness and loyalty. Yes, you run the fear of over communicating but, in crisis times, over communicating is better than under communicating. A classic case in point are the large management consulting firms. They are creating atleast 6 new pieces of content leveraging their consultants' col-lective research and knowledge at a regular cadence. These firms are creating short reading bytes, placing them on templates and churning them out at a com-petitive pace. I receive no less than 5 such nuggets-of-content everyday and read everything I want, to know and better understand the new normal. 3. Content will always be the Royal (now, more than ever)Content marketing is an effective way for brands to stay in touch with their customers and increase pipe-line generation during the pandemic. Don't stop cre-ating content. Instead, double down on content crea-tion, and make sure some of your content addresses your target audience's key questions. The conven-tional pieces of content + the new timely pieces will give you a massive advantage when things settle down. Your competitors will be scrambling to create content but you'll already have a lot of high-ranked content in the search results. A tip - ensure the content is multi-format. Here are some brands getting great content to-gether, going above and beyond a typical blog post - Delish, the cooking/recipe site has put together a guide to host a virtual dinner party. They do a great job of integrating helpful information while still leaning into their core offerings which is recipes. 4. Be Human The dramatic spread of COVID-19 has disrupted lives, livelihoods, communities and businesses world-wide. Organizations are coming together and inno-vating to minimize the impact on public health and to limit disruptions to economies and supply chains. Now is the time to be human and reflect on val-ues. For example, Volkswagen Group is driving a global response to the COVID-19 outbreak. Doctors, nursing homes and hospitals across Germany are be-ing provided with medical equipment worth around 40 million ­ from breathing masks to disinfectant, gloves, thermometers, protective goggles and suits.Similarly, luxury giant LVMH was one of the first to announce a responsive shift in production - churn-ing out hand sanitizers for Parisian hospitals rather than high-end perfumes and cosmetics for affluent customers.Organizations are feeling the vice grip of the recession that is setting in. Marketing budgets have been slashed (wrt. relevance vs. good to do/have), events have been cancelled, all engagement has moved to digital channels, digital engagement spends have doubled to create demand at the top of the funnel. Now is the time for marketers to experi-ment, be true to their values and hunker down to weather the storm. CONTENT MARKETING IS AN EFFECTIVE WAY FOR BRANDS TO STAY IN TOUCH WITH THEIR CUSTOMERS AND INCREASE PIPELINE GENERATION DURING THE PANDEMICSmitha Hemmigae
< Page 9 | Page 11 >