Stop selling, start communicating

Now we’ve had time to bed into this new normal, it’s a good opportunity to take stock and consider what comes next - as it’s going to be a little while before your kitchen table stops being an office, and your lunch breaks are spent having tea parties with a 4yr old. It can’t be just me?

Some of those faithful KPI’s you look at each week to make you feel warm and fuzzy have changed… We’re seeing conversion rates down across the board, traffic down with many paid for budgets paused.

It’s all doom and gloom right?

Nope. But you need to look beyond your flash report... Brands that are quick enough to adapt and pivot will come out of this stronger than they went into it.

We’re seeing some great engagement out there - the reduced traffic coming to sites is staying longer and viewing more. After all, Dave from Bath who loves sailing - who may have been furloughed - isn’t spending his Saturdays on the water, he’s on his sofa with his laptop and his phone. And he’s got time to kill.

And what they’re engaging with has changed. People are exploring, learning and changing their perceptions. The careful journey and product focus you’ve crafted doesn’t quite fit here.

Now is the time to bring your proposition to life, educate people on your innovations and really push your differentiation:

• Make this easy for them - don’t hide it away, adapt your homepage to unlock it.
• Just because people have time, doesn’t mean the TL:DR (too long, didn't read) rule doesn’t apply - video content is out performing anything else.
• Make sure this content is seeded across journeys - maybe consider the weight of product vs brand.
• Your social presence is more important than ever. Don’t cut back on your content - adapt it!

All without the pressure to sell... Now there’s a sentence I never thought I’d write!

It doesn’t end there - there are other profound ways to better engage with the new behaviours we’re seeing. It's difficult times like these that bring out the very best and the very worst in brands. But it's great to see so many out there rolling up their sleeves and trying to do some good.

It reinforces something that I've always firmly believed - as agencies and marketeers we are in a unique position to help bring about positive change through our influence. We have a responsibility to guide the brands we work with to help them achieve this.

Brands that have replaced the hard sell with honest, genuine and positive actions will create incredibly strong and long lasting perceptions.

I see the personalised card brand Thortful allowing people to send free cards to loved ones in their ‘Send a Smile’ campaign.

I see Netflix urging people to stay home by showing spoilers for trending shows on outdoor posters. Which is one of the nicest campaigns I’ve seen in a long time.

These brands are building powerful relationships that will thrive long after this crisis is over.

I know it’s tough out there for brands, and budgets are being cut. But while you’ve paused your comms because it’s a bad time to sell, other brands may well be creating strong emotional connections with your audience you’ll struggle to break.

Now how do we feel about Dave in Bath? Perhaps let’s stop selling, and start communicating with him.