What COVID-19 College Closures Mean for Property Marketing
Coronavirus has disrupted the college housing industry. Find out how property marketing can help navigate the uncertainty as students return to campus. The coronavirus outbreak has impacted just about every part of the economy. Colleges and college housing have not enjoyed any sort of exemption. Some schools still aren’t sure they’ll reopen for physical classes in the fall. Even if universities open, many families have concerns about their ability to help students pay for it. Because of this, college housing property managers and owners face an uncertain future and a more competitive market. Learn more about marketing to college students during the COVID-19 crisis and its aftermath. Marketing to college students for property management impacted by COVID-19 Before a college marketing agency can predict the outlook for housing, it’s important to consider the forecasted state of college enrollment. Even if universities and colleges will open their doors for the fall semester, enrollment may diminish. A college consulting firm, Simpson Scarborough, conducted a study of prospective freshmen and reported some grim news: One in five of these students said they would have to delay college plans because of changes to their family finances. An additional 11 percent said that they were not yet certain if they would have to delay their freshman year or not. Over half of respondents reported negative changes to family finances, even if they could still attend school. For students who had already attended college but hadn’t yet graduated, over forty percent said their family had suffered financial setbacks because of the pandemic. One of the firm’s founders, Elizabeth Scarborough Johnson, said they conducted the study at the end of March. Sadly, she expected that the number of students delaying college would continue to rise. Out of all the current college students surveyed, 97 percent said that their own college offered online classes to replace the canceled on-campus schedule. At the same time, most of the students found online learning less satisfying than in-person classes. In fact, only five percent said that they they liked learning online better. To be fair, these students had initially signed up for a college campus experience, and the professors in charge of the classes may have had little experience teaching online before they urgently needed to adjust. In any case, Ms. Johnson said she believed this common attitude among students meant that students were eager to return to campus life as soon as they could. While the coronavirus has disrupted colleges right now, she believed things would return to normal once the crisis had passed. How can college marketing for student housing deal with coronavirus uncertainty? Nobody blames college housing for the coronavirus. At the same time, property managers need to focus upon a few aspects of their brand reputation. Even if it’s not their fault, some people will judge them on the way they handled the unexpected crisis. StudentHousingBusiness.com, an industry journal, spoke with private owners of student housing. Besides having concerns about the future, the property owners said that they urgently struggled with the problems of lease cancellations and maintaining healthy buildings. Lease terminations Right now, many private property managers haven’t appeared to demonstrate much flexibility when it comes to leases. For example, the news in Austin, Texas ran a story about parents that had to pay Landmark Properties $12,000 to terminate their daughter’s lease when pandemic-impacted finances made it impossible for her to attend college at Texas A&M in the fall. That sum amounted to rent for six months out of the twelve-month lease. As specified in the lease, the property management company gave the family an option to find somebody to sublet the lease. With the state of college enrollment, the parents failed to find anybody to sublet online. While Landmark was within its legal rights to stick to the terms of the lease, it certainly did not do its brand much good to get publicity from this sort of news story. While some property companies haven’t yet shown much flexibility with lease terminations, Student Housing Business found that many properties have tried to work with residents in other ways. For instance, some companies have waived late fees and deferred evictions and collections. Maintaining safety Meanwhile, property managers with current tenants should follow the best practices from the CDC guidelines. These may include closing down common areas and shared amenities, deferring nonessential maintenance, limiting office visits, and sanitizing all accessible areas multiple times a day. Both students and staff may need some additional guidelines to help maintain sanitary conditions. Communicating with all stakeholders Christian O’Lone serves as the regional property manager for DMG investments, a private student housing company. He said that his company has not been financially impacted yet because they attracted displaced students from on-campus housing to replace students who had left. In addition to taking safety measures, he says that it’s very important to communicate and educate staff and current or future tenants. Because of this, he believes that one of the largest impacts of the outbreak to property management will be increased activity on advertising platforms and social media to compete for residents and keep stakeholders in the loop. As an example, Peak Housing has been producing videos to instruct student resident in the right way to perform simple maintenance tasks, such as changing light bulbs and air filters. Tips for marketing to college students during and after coronavirus Even though college housing usually doesn’t house families, it’s considered part of the multifamily housing market. Andrew Bowen has worked in property management for this kind of housing for almost 30 years. Incidentally, he got his start when he applied to serve as a resident assistant in his residence hall at the University of Santa Barbara. He told RealPage that he felt particularly qualified to speak on the topic because his oldest child had to return home from the University of North Texas to finish his classes online. He also mentioned that he tried and failed to scour the lease to see if
Pet Product Marketing During the Coronavirus
Find out how the coronavirus pandemic has impacted pet product sales, and how your pet product marketing can take advantage of opportunities. In the past, marketers thought of pet product marketing as reliably recession-resistant. According to Pet Food Industry, an industry journal, that proved true both after 911 and during the Great Recession of 2008. In contrast, industry forecasters do expect to see at least a temporary drop in some pet product sales during the coronavirus crisis. Of course, pet owners still need to feed and care for Fluffy and Fido. Because of this, not all kinds of products will suffer, and the market should rebound by next year. In fact, some brands have continued to do quite well during the crisis. Take a minute to understand the state of the current market and how a pet product marketing agency or retailer can appeal to customers. Challenges to pet product marketing during the coronavirus These are some recent recent forecast for U.S. retail sales for pet product marketing and sales that Pet Food Industry published: Post-pandemic forecasts assume a 17 percent drop in U.S. retail sales of pet products for 2020 to 2021. Before the pandemic, those same forecasts predicted a five percent increase. If true, these declines will translate into about $18 billion less revenue in 2020 than in 2019. The forecasts do predict that the market will begin to recover in 2021. This rebound underscores the strength of the market for pet food and other pet products in the United States. Pet product marketing opportunities during the coronavirus crisis While forecasters expect pet product marketing to struggle during the next year, some kinds of products may not suffer as much. For example: Industry analysts believe non-medical pet services, vet services, and non-food pet supplies will have the largest drops. On the other hand, these same forecasters expect non-discretionary product sales to maintain modest growth. Non-discretionary products include such necessary items as pet food and cat litter. Even with these need-to-have items, expect to see consumers looking for value by turning more to sales and in some cases, store brands. Pet ownership may actually increase during COVID-19 Packaged Facts provides industry research for several industries, including pet products. Their research director, David Sprinkle, believes that U.S. pet ownership might even increase during this crisis. He said that happened during the Great Recession of 2007 to 2008. It’s even more likely to happen now because pets can provide comfort and companionship during these times of social isolation measures. As more people have switched to remote work, they may also feel they have more time to care for a pet. Surges expected for eCommerce pet product sales Even before the current crisis, eCommerce sales of pet products had begun to grow at a steady pace. As with other packaged goods, the online part of the market has continued to climb during the outbreak. Consumers may feel reluctant to leave their homes to shop as much and might even have trouble finding their favorite brands reliably stocked in stores. In addition, once pet owners find an eCommerce retailer who offers competitive prices, they often decide that ordering pet products online provides them with convenience and affordability. In any case, Packaged Facts expects the online share of the market to reach 24 percent in 2020 and over 26 percent by 2021. Maintaining and growing sales during the coronavirus pandemic A pet product agency can take some comfort in the potential growth in pet ownership and a strong demand for such essential pet supplies as food and cat litter. While other niches may slump somewhat, they won’t completely drop off and are expected to resume growing again by next year. Based on these insights for the current state of the industry, businesses can take some steps to position their own pet business better. For instance, good tactics might include offering competitive prices for essential pet products to attract and keep customers. Those same customers are still likely to consider some discretionary pet purchases. Maintaining or creating pet products brand loyalty At least when it comes to pet food, most owners tend to remain pretty loyal to certain brands. If their pet appears to like a certain kind of food and that food keeps them healthy, their owners will generally keep buying it. As most pet owners know, switching brands can take a period of adjustment, so that’s something most people would rather avoid. A survey from Civic Science found that even during the pandemic, just about three-quarters of pet owners had more concerns about pet food quality than price. As an interesting note to help develop buyer personas, women, people who cook a lot for themselves, and older people appear most concerned about quality. Dog owners seemed somewhat more concerned than cat owners. People who value quality the most will tend to turn to online retailers; however, people who also value patronizing locally owned businesses also tend to care a lot about quality. This also suggests that locally owned business could have a good chance to grow their business with online ordering options. To dig a little deeper, the survey also asked these pet owners some specific questions about their buying behavior: Brand vs. price: Where 40 percent said brand mattered more than price, only 14 percent said price mattered more. To be fair, almost half of the survey respondents said that they considered price and brand just about equally important. Unsurprisingly, typical consumers would rather save money but not at the expense of quality. Sources: About 55 percent of the respondents said they bought their pet food at the store. Of these, 43 percent shopped at either a grocery or discount store and 28 percent purchased from a local or chain pet store. Online sales from Amazon and other online retailers captured about 29 percent of sales. In conclusion, pet owners do tend do demonstrate brand loyalty. On the other hand, most of these consumers would prefer to find a good deal
COVID-19 User Behavior and the Impact on Financial Marketing
After recent increases in mobile and online banking, financial marketing should now focus on an adjusted message and technology in these changing times. The COVID-19 pandemic spread quickly and left a grave impact on worldwide economies and societies in its wake. As part of the fallout, paid search behaviors have also shifted abruptly and dramatically. Some industries have struggled because of this; however, the banking and financial industry can also take advantage of new opportunities. Look at some important changes to PPC for financial services and bank marketing. COVID-19 behavior changes to PPC for financial services and banks Of course, the financial and banking industry includes a variety of services and types of companies. As you might expect, paid advertising campaign strategies could vary with the kind of business impacted. To learn how to adjust to behavior changes for PPC for financial services, it’s important to consider a few different aspects of the way customers and businesses have changed. Financial and bank marketing paid search in general The WordStream platform provides keyword and other paid advertising services to companies. Thus, they have a long history of monitoring paid search behavior for all kinds of industries over the course of several years. According to WordStream, the financial and banking industry has historically competed for some of the priciest keywords and phrases. Unlike other industries, PPC for financial services may have gotten somewhat easier during the pandemic. For instance, these are WordStream figures for coronavirus-related changes to the effectiveness and cost of financial keywords: Average CTR: Average click-through ratios have increased 23 percent. Average CVR: Average conversion ratios have increased one percent. Average CPC: Average cost-per-clicks have decreased 27 percent. As you can see, conversion ratios have not changed much. Even so, financial and bank marketing can benefit from significantly improved CTRs and lower bids. WordStream did not provide any specific keywords, but they did say that less-competitive PPC advertising has actually helped relieved some of the pressure on an extremely competitive industry. At the same time, they did note that users have shifted towards looking for more experienced assistance with their finances. During a time when many banks and other kinds of finance companies have reacted to social distancing measures by promoting their online services, a bank marketing agency might consider shifting at least some of the budget to helping consumers find live, personalized financial assistance, even if they switch to accessing it by phone instead of by visiting an office or branch bank. COVID-19 social responsibility ads Of course, the pandemic has also generated plenty of coronavirus-related searches for all sorts of businesses, including financial ones. Since the virus spreads easily, any threat to local employees also poses a potential threat to everybody around them. During this crisis, people certainly want to know how companies have reacted to the crisis in order to protect the health of their employees and customers. As one example, BBVA has launched a campaign to let customers know what measures they’re taking to keep people safe. According to the bank’s website, they use paid search, but mostly on social media and not major search engines. Besides using online ads, they also promoted this campaign on TV and radio. As part of this #StayAtHome advertising campaign: BBVA has also encouraged customers to make use of their website and app before visiting a branch. In addition, they let people know that most of their branches would limit access to their drive-through windows and ATM machines. They told customers that they have left a few branches open but reduced hours. Typically, they chose to keep branches open that didn’t have drive-through banking or a nearby branch with this service. In summary, the bank has recognized that some customers may feel inconvenienced by limited access to the bank’s physical branches. In turn, BBVA has explained that they’ve taken these steps to help protect people’s health. They have also let people know that they can find alternative ways to get most of the services that they need. Just as important, BBVA has also introduced some services to help customers with coronavirus-related financial issues. These include special loan programs, refunds, fee waivers, and extensions or deferments on payments for some of their loans. Thus, they’ve let customers know that they understand the pandemic could have negatively impacted them and want to help. Naturally, they’re using this advertising campaign to promote these new services too. The CMO of BBVA, Enrique Cornish, says that they want to tell people about the work they’ve done to respond to the coronavirus crisis. Mostly, underscoring the point of these ads, they want to send the message that they’re working to cope with the crisis in the best way they can and are here to help. How the financial industry can benefit from COVID-19 changes to financial and bank marketing Plenty of industry analysts have noticed the sudden spike in eCommerce use since the outbreak began. While online shopping had steadily grown more popular over time, the coronavirus crisis has sparked a rapid boom. Similarly, bank customers have grown more accepting of online services over time and even more so since the crisis started. The Financial Brand, one finance and bank advertising agency, believes this change to customer behavior will remain permanent, just as other analysts predict that consumers will keep using eCommerce more after the crisis ends. They published these results from a recent J.D. Powers survey on banking trends: About one in three banking customers plan to rely upon online services after the crisis. The analysts expect to see this number rise even more as the pandemic runs its course. Banking customers appear most interested in P2P payments and online or mobile check depositing. Acceptance of online and mobile banking services has increased more with younger adults than older ones. People who have already used online banking appear more willing to try mobile apps than people who have only ever visited branches. Customers of the largest banks appear more satisfied with their online and
Smart Hotel Marketing: How Hotels Can Fill Reservations Now
Smart hotel marketing involves focusing on existing demand, offering value, and targeting demand during and after Coronavirus. If you work for a hotel or hotel marketing company, nobody needs to tell you that the COVID-19 outbreak has seriously impacted your business. During the best of times, hotel marketers operate in an extremely competitive environment. For many locations, customers will simply cross the street to save a few dollars or enjoy an extra perk with their loyalty program. At the same time, some hotels have managed to find some unique opportunities to maximize their bookings with savvy, budget-friendly coronavirus marketing. Seven Tips for marketing my hotel during and after the coronavirus crisis It might help to review some of the challenges hotels face right now before considering suggestions for coronavirus marketing. For example, USA Today reported that occupancy rates across the country have dropped to about 20 percent. Compared to the same period last year, the hotel industry has suffered over a 70-percent decline. On the other hand, some kinds of hotel properties have held on better than others. For instance, budget and suburban hotels have typically not suffered the same drop in bookings. People still need to travel for essential work or urgent personal reasons. In some cases, healthcare professionals have decided to self-quarantine in a hotel to protect their families. With the current drop in travellers in mind, consider these hotel marketing tips that can help you weather and emerge from the current situation. 1. Pick your marketing battles Most marketing analysts caution struggling hotels to keep marketing, even if they have to trim budgets. You may even find that it’s easier to compete on paid search and other platforms because other venues have also had to redirect some marketing dollars. Instead of casting a wide net, try to hedge your bets. As an example, Hospitality Net encouraged hotel marketers to direct ads mostly to domestic and not international audiences. Because of travel bans and discouragement, you may do better by appealing to a domestic and even fairly local audience than you could if you tried to advertise your New York City hotel in Spain. 2. Consider local marketing efforts As an obvious example, some hotels have restaurants. Even if the dining rooms have closed, curbside pickup and delivery still attract customers. Some upscale restaurants have enjoyed success by packaging up multi-course or family meals for anniversaries, birthdays, and holidays. More modest restaurants have attracted local residents who are tired of their own cooking or businesses that may need lunches picked up for essential workers. As for coronavirus marketing, some healthcare workers or impacted people may need a room to isolate themselves. This may be the best time to attract these customers by offering generous deals for long-term stays. You might also offer your meeting rooms for people or organizations who need in-person places to gather during the crisis. 3. Beware of too much price competition Certain, the section above suggested considering offering lower rates for certain kinds of guests. Before that, current statistics appear to suggest that budget hotels have faired the best during this crisis. Still,you can’t lower your rates below a certain point and still expect to profit, so engaging in too much price competition just to fill rooms can lead to an even worse disaster. Typical industry advice is to offer deals that you would normally offer during a promotion but not better. You may decide to offer long-term rates for certain situations because you can enjoy certain economies by having the same guest stay for several days to several months. You might also consider some packaging bundles and services that add value but don’t reduce your revenues so much. Some of these ideas make particular sense during the outbreak. For instance: Instead of the typical breakfast buffet, consider offering a free breakfast delivered to the room. Rather than having a late-afternoon happy hour in the lobby, switch it to a room-service cocktail. Offer free coupons or discounts for various closed services that begin on the date when they open again. 4. Consider promoting more flexible cancellation policies Right now, most of the large hotel chains have updated their cancellation policies to better accomodate guests during the coronavirus crisis. Until June 30, Marriot will let guests make changes or cancellations without charges so long as they do it with 24-hours notice.Hyatt, Hilton, and other large chains have similar new policies in place. After all, with hotel occupancy rates down, most hotels don’t have concerns about turning away guests because of overbooking, so they probably don’t have so much to lose. These more flexible cancellation policies can help reduce the concerns of customers who may worry about having travel plans disrupted. It can also help encourage people to stay home if they suddenly find themselves sick with the coronavirus, so you can also consider it a safety measure. Even if you plan to resume your typical cancellation policy later, you can also earn some good will by remaining more flexible now. 5. Promote your health and safety measures These days, it’s common to find travelers searching with terms like “coronavirus safety tips for travelers” or even “coronavirus-safe hotels” on major search engines and social networks. As the outbreak progresses, you have probably already striven to protect your employees and guests through such measures as: Asking guests about possible exposure to COVID-19 Providing protective equipment, disenfectant, and additional guidance to cleaning staff, food handlers, desk clerks, and even valet drivers Offer touch-free checkins and checkouts If you allow them, keeping any quarantined guests and even their laundry and belongings away from others Right now, you might have somewhat more limited ways to broadcast your coronavirus-safety messaging. Google only appears to display organic, authoritative sources for most searches related to coronavirus. Still, you can reassure potential guests by including messages about your safety efforts with your website, emails, social site postings, press releases, and advertisements on all sorts of digital media. Because of the global pandemic, everybody
ECommerce Website Management and Marketing After COVID-19
Read why eCommerce is booming during the coronavirus, and how businesses can retain those customers after the crisis passes. During these days of the coronavirus outbreak, you might have a hard time picturing a return to normal business conditions. Still, you can already see signs that preventative measures have begun to flatten the curve and even turn it around. Doctors and scientists have remained optimistic that they can devise better treatments and effective vaccines rapidly. Hopefully soon, people can start to resume normal activities and companies can reopen their doors. Still, most marketers expect at least some of the dramatic changes to consumer behavior to last. More specifically, one sector of the economy, eCommerce, has boomed. With that in mind, it’s important to address eCommerce management and marketing strategies that will ensure that you can retain the gains you may have made for a long time after the coronavirus crisis passes. How has eCommerce marketing fared during the coronavirus outbreak? To understand how rapidly eCommerce has grown, take a look at one particular segment, food and beverages. According to eMarketer, they had previously forecasted eCommerce sales for food and beverages would increase during 2020. The pre-coronavirus forecasts predicted growth of over 23 percent and over $32 billion in revenues for the year. While eCommerce had only accounted for 3.2 percent of all receipts in this market, they had suggested food and beverage as an example of a segment of eCommerce niche without much current penetration and plenty of room for growth. Before the crisis, retailers marketing on Amazon may have also enjoyed brisk growth because of the way the largest online retailer had improved logistics to provide quick deliveries. Even though Amazon ranks first in overall eCommerce, it is not the only source of food and beverage. In fact, a large segment of that market also goes to grocers and independent direct-to-consumer companies. In any case, you should inform yourself by looking at the surge during the first months of coronavirus stay-at-home orders: Just within the three days between March 12 and March 15, a comparison of that same time period from last year showed that orders in that sector boomed by over 200 percent. Another survey sampled the time period between March 1 and March 25, and found 183-percent growth. A poll of consumer behavior between March 1 and March 25 found that American adults reported increasing their online grocery shopping from about 11 percent to 37 percent. Even more, eMarketer reported that shopping online grew steadily more common each week by the middle of March. Will marketing my product online continue to grow after the coronavirus? Obviously, people have increasingly turned to eCommerce because they want to avoid crowded grocery stores during the crisis. Also, some retailers have limited hours or even temporarily closed, so consumers need a convenient alternative. Still, you can look at past consumer behavior to predict that many of these consumers will continue to shop online after the outbreak. Predictably, eCommerce spending has surged during the last quarter of each year. Still, it doesn’t die down after the holiday season ends to the the previous first-quarter levels. Multiple-year charts look more like an ascending staircase than like a series of peaks and valleys. During successive years, sales will surge again the next fourth quarter to even higher levels than the year before. This suggests that once consumers get used to shopping online, they tend to keep the habit. Which eCommerce website management and marketing strategies will help you retain customers after the coronavirus? Certainly, shoppers will still return to retail outlets after the crisis passes. At the same time, it’s fair to predict that they will also continue to spend more money online than they did before the pandemic. Even if consumers just switched out the equivalent of one out of ten of their normal shopping trips for an online order, it would have a tremendous impact on eCommerce growth. Of course, you may have plenty of online competition in your niche and cannot guarantee that all of the customers you attracted during the outbreak will return to your business. These eCommerce marketing suggestions can help you retain more of your customers now and in the future: Subscription orders If you’ve done any consumable marketing on Amazon, Shopify, or even your own eCommerce site, you’ve probably run into subscription orders. You often see them for such consumer goods as coffee and dog food, and they let customers create a recurring order every month, typically at a discount. Such DTC companies as Dollar Shave Club and Blue Apron also rely upon the subscription model. They tend to work particularly well in such categories as food, pet food, and beauty. According to McKinsey Research, the overall subscription market has increased by 100 percent a year, and about 15 percent of all consumers say they have used subscriptions for convenient, repeat ordering at least one time. The model particularly appears to appeal to younger adults who live in urban areas and earn at least $50,000 a year. Consumers who take advantage of subscription purchases say they enjoy the convenience and value; however, they also say they’re quick to cancel if they don’t receive high-quality service and products. If you decide to offer subscription ordering, you need to make certain that you have the good products and services in place to sustain it. Loyalty programs Adding a loyalty program to your eCommerce marketing plan provides you with another way to entice customers to return. Typically, these programs offer such rewards as points to accumulate for free products, discounts, or notification of special promotions. Some companies even give their customers extra points for mentioning their products on their social networks or for providing reviews. If you add a referral program to your loyalty program, you can even encourage your current customers to mention your business to their friends. Provide flexible customer service options Recently, a lot of businesses have made their return or cancellation policies more flexible to
Small Business Marketing During and After the Coronavirus Crisis
Read our 7 small business marketing and customer acquisition strategies to obtain more business during and after the coronavirus pandemic. Has the coronavirus crisis derailed your customer acquisition strategy? According to recent studies, this serious outbreak has negatively impacted a great number of small businesses. Meanwhile, even more expect crisis-related obstacles in the near future. On the other hand, some smaller companies have made savvy plays to help maintain and even increase business in the future. Learn how the COVID-19 outbreak has affected American companies and which small business marketing ideas can help you acquire new customers and retain your existing ones. The coronavirus outbreak impact on American small businesses The National Federation of Independent Businesses published a study of hundreds of small businesses on March 13, 2020. The report found that almost one-quarter of U.S. small businesses had already felt a negative impact. At the same time, about 43 percent of business owners said they predicted a negative impact in the future. Another 37 percent of respondents could not predict ramifications, and only 20 percent of the business owners believed that their business, at least, would have immunity to the virus. The business owners who reported negative impacts from the coronavirus outbreak mostly had these kinds of problems: Supply chain disruptions: 39% Slow sales: 42% Ill employees: 4% Again, this survey occurred close to the middle of March, so reactions to the virus had not yet peaked. As the weeks have passed, stay-at-home orders have grown stricter and more common. Even so, just about half of employers who had not yet felt an impact said they had already planned ahead to minimize risks to their business. Some examples of these measures included purchasing more supplies to improve store, worker, and customer in-store hygiene, working with employees on sick leave policies, allowing more remote work, and arranging for alternative distributors for supplies. The survey did not mention ways that small businesses might adapt their marketing customer acquisition strategy during and after the coronavirus. How to get more business for my small business during and after coronavirus? Are you asking how you can keep your business running during the coronavirus and emerge even stronger afterwards? At this time, stay-at-home orders affect almost every part of the country to some degree. Even without them, you will probably see fewer customers who want to visit your store or office. You may even find that the demand for any non-essential products or services you offer has declined. With all this in mind, the obvious conclusion is to ramp up your digital business. If you don’t conduct much business digitally, you could hardly find a better time to start. Consider these digital small business marketing ideas: Sell online Digital Trends pointed out that a number of small businesses have scrambled to take more of their business online during the crisis. As an example, Bonnie Morales owns a small Russian restaurant in Portland, Oregon. Previously, she had no online options to order online or get curbside takeout. She had to close her dining room and layoff staff on a Sunday, decided she needed online ordering on the next Monday, and managed to get basic features live by Tuesday. While Morales worked very quickly, she said she knew she had lost customers who may have looked for online ordering options previously. She promoted her new curbside delivery and online ordering on such social sites as Instagram, which luckily, she had already established. Other local stores and restaurants have followed this trends. Without an established eCommerce site, the businesses make simple platforms that post menus or list items for sale, and they may simple take orders and collect payment by phone. Small businesses may offer curbside pickup or various delivery options. Obviously, small businesses can benefit by having more feature-rich eCommerce platforms and of course, digital marketing platforms. During this crisis, these companies might start with the minimum they need to get online and then work on improving both their digital services and marketing as they go. Connect digitally Explore platforms that allow you to communicate with your customers, even when they don’t care to visit you in person. You can find plenty of visual chat and meeting apps that will let you give presentations, answer questions, and provide customer service in almost the same way you could do in person. Even doctors and therapists are turning to online appointments when possible these days, and so are insurance agents and attorneys. Go social If you haven’t paid much attention to your small business social profiles on sites like Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest, it’s certainly a good time to get started. If you run a B2B company, you might focus on LinkedIn. No matter what, this is a good time to connect with your market and encourage your employees to do the same. As to the kind of content you should post, you might take a cure from similar companies that hope to maintain their business and brand during these challenging times: First of all, let people know they can still buy from you online or over the phone. As one ice cream shop owner said, “We have to shout it from the rooftops.” Work on building your connections, so as many people as possible will see your message. On social sites you can search for the kinds of groups that you are likely to appeal to. Let your community know how you maintain a safe, healthy business to protect yourself, your employees, and of course, your customers. Not only will you help reassure anxious customers, you will enhance your brand. Work hard to build personal connections by explaining how your business and employees need their support in order to survive and thrive. Get creative with your offers to adjust them for delivery or pickup options. Consider ways you can give back to the community by supporting hospitals, first responders, and residents. Not only can you support worthy causes, you can promote your good deeds on your own
Using Place Branding to Restart Marketing in Travel and Tourism
Place branding ideas that will strategically enhance your hotel marketing efforts and assist in post-coronavirus recovery. Place branding refers to creating an identity for a location, such as a city, town, or state. The idea started to gain traction a few years ago as a way to attract visitors, businesses, investors, and residents to various destinations. As has happened after some other disasters, place branding might provide an effective way to help enhance marketing in travel and tourism. Consider some hotel marketing ideas to use to help restart tourism by using place marketing concepts after the outbreak of coronavirus. Enhancing marketing in travel and tourism with place branding after coronavirus Right now, news of the COVID-19 outbreak has consumed attention all over the world. Governments have imposed various travel bans, stay-at-home orders, and social distancing directives. Naturally, tourism marketing companies have found themselves in the tight spot of attempting to produce revenues while still acting responsibly. City Nation Place provides an entire publication dedicated to place branding. According to that publication, even more than the current lost revenues and profits, the damage to the reputation of some states and cities could take a long time to repair. At the same time, they have observed some localities responding to disasters better than others. Anybody who is involved with marketing in travel and tourism can benefit from examining some case studies about the way certain destinations have responded to disasters in a way that could enhance or detract from their brand. California wildfires and the California Wine Country During 2019, wildfires made the news all too frequently. Locations hit by these fires include California, the Amazon, and Australia. In a reference to earlier fires that affected California’s Wine Country, the CEO of Visit California said that the destruction impacted less than one percent of the entire state. At the same time, that’s not the picture that people from elsewhere got from media coverage. Instead, it appeared as if the entire state was burning. Obviously, news stories about blazing infernos can attract attention. Factual stories that mention that the fires only affected five wineries and less than two percent of California grapes rarely get much notice by the public. Still, Visit California responded by organizing a feast to help raise funds for assistance and promote the resilience of the residents. They held the celebration, called The Grateful Table, in a field that bridged both Napa and Sonoma Counties. The successful event raised about $150,000 and perhaps best of all, attracted very positive media attention to California Wine Country. Puerto Rico and Hurricanes Irma and Maria Most people have probably seen images of devastated landscapes and cityscapes after Hurricane Irma and Hurricane Maria struck Puerto Rico. Images of desperate pleas for water, food, and supplies also made the top of the news cycle. While this narrative did help ignite relief efforts, it also had some negative long-term ramifications. Even a year later, people sympathized with the island territory, but they no longer wanted to make travel plans to visit. According to the CEO of Discover Puerto Rico, Brad Dean, news on the anniversary of the disasters did more to remind people of unfinished repair work than to inform them of all of the projects that had been successfully completed. They worked hard to change the news narrative to one that highlighted the progress they had made and how welcoming and pleasant a destination visitors would find Puerto Rico. Though they faced a tough battle, they succeeded by ensuring that the majority of news stories about the disaster’s anniversary contained a positive message. How can I incorporate place branding into marketing for my hotel or other destination? The case studies above illustrated good efforts to rehabilitate the image of an area impacted by such natural disasters as fires and floods. In many ways, people should compare a pandemic more to a natural disaster than any other kind. Except for a few conspiracy theorists, nobody thinks that anybody intentionally spread the virus or certainly, meant to get themselves or their own family infected. As with other disasters, people mostly can’t judge a location for experiencing the calamity. On the other hand, they might judge the destination’s reaction to that disaster. For instance, neither California nor Puerto Rico wasted any energy trying to present a false narrative that minimized the destruction they experienced. Most of all, they simply wanted to show the world the true narrative of the ways that their people reacted, that they welcomed visitors, and that guests could still have a great experience when they came. Why you should brand your location when you brand your hotel As noted in Creative Supply, few people visit Paris because they want to stay in a particular hotel. Instead, tourists stay in a Parisian hotel because they want to visit Paris. Just as in other kinds of real estate, location matters a lot. You should consider this if you’re looking for hotel marketing ideas for a big city, tropical beach, or even a convenient suburban location beside a major freeway, airport, or business district. Naturally, you want to sell the value and attractiveness of your hotel; however, you will miss opportunities if you don’t also promote the attractiveness of your address. In order to develop this asset, you should think about ways to invest in it. Your investment might consist simply of helping to promote it as you promote your own property. During this time of a worrisome disease outbreak, you can also consider investing by figuring out ways that your hotel can help your community. For instance, if you the chefs and staff of your closed dining room don’t have enough to do, perhaps you could see if local hospital employees could use your catering services or even a wing of your underutilized rooms to house traveling nurses. You don’t even necessarily have to give all this away for free, but you might try to offer the kinds of promotions and flexibility that will make
Rethink Your Small Business Brand Identity Design for COVID-19
Strengthen your brand identity design after Coronavirus: Develop new distribution methods, enhance your brand purpose, expand markets, and more. Some marketers only associate brand identity design with actual graphic design. Logos, fonts, and colors make up part of the package that help consumers identity a business, but that’s not all of it. Taken together, the concept of a brand refers more to an emotional or even a philosophical reaction that people have. And that’s coming from Lucidpress, a company that helps customers mostly with the graphical aspects of their small business branding. While the visual elements and consistency of small business branding remain critical, that’s probably not the part of the brand that business owners may seek to change during and after the COVID-19 epidemic. Consider some examples of businesses that have successfully transformed themselves to remain viable during the outbreak and emerge even stronger afterwards. These examples are bound to generate some great brand ideas for your own company. Small business ideas to change my branding during and after COVID-19 Forbes mentioned that it’s not entirely possible to know how the coronavirus outbreak will change long-term consumer behavior. Right now, it’s easy to see that consumers have grown more cautious about leaving home and in many cases, spending money. Like Forbes, many marketers predict that people will retain some of these habits for quite awhile in the future as the world emerges from the outbreak and begins to experience more normal conditions. With that in mind, consider some brand ideas that can help enhance and promote small businesses during the current outbreak and even into the future. Establish brand purpose Certainly, your business exists to make money. The idea of brand purpose refers to establishing a reason for your brand to exist beyond generating profit. A business can derive its purpose directly from the types of products or services that it offers customers. For instanced, a daycare exists to take excellent care of children. However, this purpose can extend further to the ideals and causes that the company supports. Numerous studies have found the people will vote with their wallets to support companies that align with their own views, even if it costs somewhat more to do so. If you can establish your brand purpose both with the products or services you supply and by supporting good causes, you will always have an easier time attracting and retaining customers. For some brand purpose ideas, consider these diverse examples: Most people have had a hard time finding hand sanitizer on store shelves. Several distilleries have helped enhance their brand by switching from only producing alcoholic spirits to producing alcohol-based hand sanitizers. Depending upon their own business needs, they may sell, give them away, or sell some and donate some. Either way, they can keep employees and suppliers working while enhancing their brand image by providing vital supplies. A number of beauty and cosmetic companies have also switched gears to producing sanitizing gels. In addition, Avon has started creating personal care packages with such essentials as shampoo and body wash as donations to Feed the Children. Lego has also contributed with its existing “Explained With Lego Video Bricks” video platform on YouTube. To support the multitudes of currently homeschooling parents, they have recently posted a number of educational topics. These range from explaining how renewable energy works to the fundamentals of genetics. In all of these cases, the businesses contributed to their customer’s current needs, those of worthy charities, or some of both. Can your business contribute by helping consumers with the current situation or at least, donating to good causes? Create constructive partnerships with other good brands When the going gets tough, maybe the toughest work together. You can find a number of ways that small businesses have partnered up with other brands for their mutual benefit. For instance, restaurant dining rooms have closed all over the country. Of course, some of these places have turned to pickup and delivery for revenue. Along with this, some meal delivery services have focused upon helping to promote the local eateries they work with and often, waived some delivery fees for the duration of the crisis. Typically, grocery stores can still do business and have generally done a brisk business since people still need to eat. They have even partnered with local restaurants to offer packaged meals from within the grocery store. As another example, several eCommerce companies have teamed up to make pledges to donate a portion of their revenues to virus-related charities. All of these different brands have promoted a website that informs the public about this worthy effort and at the same time, the charity site also promotes the business. Expand business into new markets Some companies have found that their past clients just cannot use their existing services at the moment. For example, one cleaning company lost business because many customers refused to allow them inside their homes during the outbreak. They did find new customers when they pivoted to offering sanitizing services to buildings that still need to stay open. While they haven’t quite made up for the temporarilly lost customers, they did find a new market in order to keep employees working. After the outbreak passes, they hope to recover their old customers and of course, keep these new ones. Likewise, a number of local gyms have begun to offer at-home, live video classes to keep their membership fit and even better, still subscribing to their services. Using tools like Zoom, the live classes can also offer people some of the same social outlet that they may have enjoyed during in-person classes. Some of these gyms also mostly catered to adults, but they have expanded to offering kid’s classes to help families cope with the problem of spending too much time indoors and inactive. After the pandemic relaxes restrictions on these gyms, some patrons may still enjoy the option of attending video classes, and that could even provide a way for these fitness businesses to grow
Adjusting Your Hotel Digital Marketing Strategy During COVID-19
When it comes hotel digital marketing during COVID-19, here are some tips on rethinking messaging, audience targeting, and marketing platforms. Rosie Sparks of Skift may have had one of the best introductory takes for tourism digital marketing during the coronavirus outbreak. To paraphrase, she said that hospitality marketers will have to walk a fine line to develop hotel and resort marketing plans during the crisis. Naturally, potential guests have grown increasingly and understandably cautious about leaving their homes for non-necessary travel. On the other hand, some relatively low-risk marketing tactics could attract the revunue that hotels and other travel businesses need to stave off disaster. So, what are low-risk digital marketing tactics? Skift mostly focused upon marketing isolated or outbreak-free destinations to help allay tourists fears about traveling during a pandemic. For instance, they published examples of a social and display advertising strategy that consisted of showing idyllic pictures and videos of fairly isolated places that hadn’t been touched by the coronavirus outbreak. These included African savannas, smaller European cities, and remote jungles. Other marketers have also highlighted the ideas of staycations that can give travelers a way to give into their understandable urge to simply get away from it all. Is promoting virus-free staycations a viable digital marketing tactic for hotel marketing? The publication noted that government and health organizations from all over the world have urged people to stay home during the outbreak. Right now, they admitted that promoting any tourism at all can damage brands. While some destinations have enjoyed a certain amount of success with this tactic, it’s risky because it’s controversial and also, won’t work for everybody. For instance, residents of some of these mostly virus-free places have protested against attracting too many out-of-towners to their location for fear they may bring the disease with them. People who agree that it’s best to shelter in place as much as possible may also resent this kind of messaging during a crisis, even if they don’t personally have anything to lose. Most of all, not every hospitality marketer has the luxury to promise a place to escape that’s far from the pandemic. Suggestions for a better digital advertising strategy for the pandemic So how can resort and hotel marketing companies best use their precious marketing budgets productively during the coronavirus outbreak? Mostly, you have to find ways to adjust your audience targeting for the times. Because you’ve changed your audience, you should also recognize their needs and concerns within your messaging. To understand how to proceed, dig deeper into some examples. Rethink your display advertising strategy budget You may have to work with a lean marketing budget while your business slumps. You can take heart from knowing that your competitors also have to trim expenses, so you may have opportunities to enjoy some bargain placements from publishers, search, and social platforms. For example, Skift noted that Google’s typically robust travel search has almost become unrecognizable because of the lack of ads. Once you narrow down your message and target audience, you should have plenty of opportunities to test your marketing for much lower rates than you paid a few months ago. Uncover low-hanging fruit to target Figure out which people still might visit your business. Even though most people have chosen to stay chose to home, some hotels have managed to keep a steady flow of bookings with visitors like these: According to USA Today, thousands of hotels have signed up with an organization called Hospitality for Hope. This matches hotels with agencies in need of lodging. An obvious example of guests this can attract would include healthcare workers who have ventured into cities to help with coronavirus hotspots. Similarly, hotels have worked with hospitals, city or county governments, and individuals to help house medical workers, loved ones of patients in hospitals, or even people who don’t need medical care but still need a comfortable place to self-quarantine away from family. For instance, many doctors and nurses have chosen to isolate themselves in hotel rooms for the durations to reduce the risk of infecting their families. Besides essential businesspeople who still need to travel for important work, local remote workers have checked into hotels as alternative workspaces. For instance, a parent with a house full of kids may need a quiet place to attend to a day full of video conferencing meetings. With typical work-sharing venues closed down, a hotel can typically provide the amenities these employees need. The idea of offering staycations may still work, but instead of trying to attract international travelers to exotic destinations, any city or suburban motel could offer staycations to people who just want to leave home but not travel very far. Hotels and resorts can offer room service, in-room entertainment, and other amenities to help attract guests who live nearby but still want to feel like they’re getting away from it all. Some hotels have worked with local restaurants to promote gourmet weekends with a variety of meals that get delivered right to the front door. Naturally, once you uncover an existing demand, you may want to tailor packages that will appeal to these people. Whslasile most marketers caution against slashing rates too low to attract guests, you might consider ways you can add value to your packages without reducing revenues too much. Some ideas that other hotels have promoted include discounts for long-term stays, packages that include room service and other upgraded amenities, and of course, relaxed cancellation policies. Choosing tourism digital marketing platforms Naturally, you should maintain your presence on any robust social sites you already inhabit. Some content ideas might include: Use graphics and videos to demonstrate the extra steps you have taken to protect the health of your guests and employees during the outbreak. For instance, you might even produce a video of your cleaning staff working to sanitize a room for new guests. If you do have rooms for people who need to self-quarantine, you might demonstrate that you have established this block of
Video Marketing: Keep Your Audience Engaged During COVID-19
Video marketing for business during COVID-19 can replace trade shows, keep customers engaged, and promote brand transparency. COVID-19 has spread to all 50 states and to almost every country in the world. Along with the pandemic, governments have curtailed business activities and cautioned citizens to stay home as much as possible. As businesses struggle to adjust to this new reality, they’ve had to rapidly adjust marketing plans to cater to very different consumer behaviors and their own uncertain futures. Uncertain or not, marketing has to continue or your business may not enjoy much of a future at all. Even if your have to operate with a tighter marketing budget, video marketing for business will provide you with a very useful tool and good potential returns for your brand and bottom line. How to use video marketing to help your company overcome the pandemic You may wonder if you have the funds to invest in video marketing for business right now. As your business environment has changed, you will probably find some other marketing items that you have to cut anyway. For instance, typical businesses allocate 30 to 40 percent of their budgets to attend trade shows and conventions. Since most of you won’t have the chance to travel anywhere soon, you might as well redistribute those funds. With that in mind, consider ways to make good use of your video content. Create a video for business trade shows In fact, you can work to replace those in-person meetings with virtual meeting via videos. For instance, if missing trade shows means that you also miss opportunities to connect with potential customers, why not host your own version of the event online. You can repurpose keynote speeches as videos, feature other speakers in their own videos, and host webinars to replace the meeting sessions you may have planned. Invite everybody who had planned to attend the original trade show and put out the word on social media. Try to engage online influencers, and if they’re big and enthusiastic enough, invite them to present their own video too. This is a good time to share resources and develop partnerships. You might actually draw a larger audience online than you could have in person, particularly if you record everything to let your audience either tune in live or later at their convenience. Keep in touch with customers During a crisis like this, your customers won’t find your silence golden at all. In fact, you’ll want to do more to ensure you stay on top of your customer’s minds. If like many other businesses, you’re struggling with suppliers and distribution channels, you can produce a video to explain why can’t deliver exactly the same kind of service that you’re customers have come to expect from you. Some other things that you should let your customers know could include: How hard you’re working to ensure employee and customer safety Any changes that might impact planned operations or scheduled events Details of your more flexible refund or cancellation policy in response to your customer’s needs In other words, you worked hard in the past to set your customer’s expectations. If you can’t meet those expectations, you can develop a video to explain your situation. In the midst of a global pandemic when over 20 million Americans have had to file for unemployment in just the last month, your customers will understand and appreciate your transparency. Still, since they’re all likely dealing with plenty of their own uncertainty, they won’t appreciate your silence. Keep customers and prospects engaged Lots of small businesses have gotten pretty creative with their videos lately. They’ve tried to cater to the needs of customers, most of whom have to stay home themselves. For instance, restaurants have started to produce cooking videos and fitness centers have uploaded at-home workout classes. Lego, the toy manufacturer, has started increasing its like of educational videos to help the millions of parents who are suddenly confronted with the challenge of home schooling. Your videos don’t necessarily have to sell your products or services; however, they should help to sell your brand. Local video marketing can enhance new distribution models Most retail stores have been forced to close their doors to customers because of the pandemic. Some of these stores had really not developed an eCommerce presence well before the outbreak. Still, they have creatively adapted online videos that can duplicate customers the experience of browsing around the store. Using these, they can take orders through their hastily developed eCommerce sites, simple forms, or even over the phone. Is video marketing for business effective? Zach Basner directs IMPACT’s video marketing strategy. As he put it, video offers the only digital way for people to see, hear, and even get to know you. It gives you an opportunity to make connections even when you cannot meet people in person. He also believes that small businesses should not concern themselves too much if they cannot access high-end video equipment during the crisis. While it’s important to produce valuable content that’s good enough for people to understand your message, you shouldn’t let the perfect become the enemy of the good-enough. If you need to choose between shooting your video at home on your cell phone or not producing video at home, use what you have. He also says that production companies may have also lost businesses and may be more willing to help edit those videos for a reasonable rate than they might have been in the past. Do what you can and seek help when you must; however, it’s important to get those videos produced and uploaded, even if they’re not as perfect as you would like. Basner also said that user-generated content tends to perform quite well on some platforms, so your imperfect production might blend in even better than a finely polished piece. Basner also mentioned that you might enjoy bargains when you’re posting video ads on social networks and search engines. Bids have dropped along with ad