Does Your Marketing Toolbox Need a Pandemic Refresh?
For most of us our current work experience is busier and more challenging than ever. With huge portions of the workforce now working from home, many tried and true ways of doing business have been eliminated altogether. In the past we’ve talked about the cost of inaction and it’s likely become clear to you, and your team, that inaction is not an option. As a result, your organization may have made more unplanned changes in the last two months than it has in the last two years. If your company didn’t have strong remote culture in place before the pandemic hit, it may feel like you’re building a car while simultaneously driving it at 65 miles per hour down the highway. Which is why what I’m about to say may feel overwhelming, but stay with me: It’s time to look at your Marketing Toolbox through the lens of our current state-of-affairs and, if needed, make changes. Taking the time to look at your toolbox, refresh it, or build new necessary pieces will be a key part of your success in the coming months.
So what should you consider? Here’s a place to start:
Are all of your marketing materials easily shared in a digital format? If you used to do most of your business in person, you certainly have great printed materials, but do you have digital versions of those assets that you can quickly share? Have some of your more resourceful team members cobbled together some digital tools out of necessity? Take a moment to see what is being shared, how it looks on a screen, and if it reflects your company’s brand standards. Making sure that your print pieces are easily attached and can be read seamlessly in a digital format is key to supporting your business prospecting efforts. Perhaps just as important, communicating with your team about the updated tools and processes is critical to this success. Beautiful and easily shared tools are not useful if part of your team doesn’t know they exist or how to access them.
Are your new tools in an easily accessible and shareable place? Once you’ve put together your digital marketing materials, how do you ensure they are easily accessible, both to your internal team and to external clients? A centrally located drive that everyone has access to, but few have administrative access to, will help ease these pains. If you have an internal drive, that’s great! Create a folder and use it. If you don’t, that’s okay. We have helped clients create a shared virtual marketing packet using Google Drive or Dropbox to seamlessly share resources and marketing materials with potential clients, and this same process works well to organize internal documents for temporarily-distanced teams. There are a plethora of free or cheap shared drive options that could meet this temporary need.
Are your new tools brand consistent? In this age of increased competition and decreased customer attention spans, sending the right message is significantly important. If you have spent time and money on a great website, created a wonderful customer experience and built an amazing team, it will be an incongruent experience for your prospects to receive a brochure that is not brand-aligned. It’s important to put any new pieces together in an aesthetically pleasing, easy to read, and appealing way. The good news: creating a consistent, branded digital experience is both an investment in the current moment as well as your future prospecting. There is a high likelihood that we will all do more remote outreach and the work-life balance will shift to less in-person and more virtual even once the pandemic is behind us. Doing the work now will benefit your growth in the long run.
Have your marketing materials been updated to reflect any changes to products or services? If you’ve had to make changes to how you generate revenue in 2020, you’re not alone. Make sure that all the information in your marketing toolbox reflects any new or changed products and services. When we are reacting quickly in crisis, things can change just as swiftly. Do a double check to make sure your content is representative of your offerings; you may be surprised that some have changed even in the last eight weeks alone.
Are there any new tools you need to add to your toolbox? Working remotely requires different tools and processes. What support tools or items do you and your team need? Are there brand standards for how a sales person’s work from home should look during sales calls? Does your team need a scheduling tool to help them manage increased meetings? The best way to identify missing tools is to find out from your team what their pain points are. Then, you can fill in the gaps and streamline your processes to effectively meet your unique needs.
This is a strange, but in a way beautifully opportunistic, moment in time. Being quite literally forced to move everything online - or at least to accommodate for physical distancing - requires innovation and creativity and strong project management skills to keep everything in place. If you would like some outside perspective and expert guidance to make sure that your toolbox is working for your company, we offer a variety of ways to help you do so. We are experts at creating strategic, sustainable messaging and resources that share your mission and goals, whatever the challenge. If you’d like to connect, shoot us an email.