Mediaboss Marketing

Mark Irwin, managing director, Ardmore

As local businesses begin to recover from the immense personal and professional challenges of the pandemic, many will rightly be considering their strategy for bouncing back and maximising the opportunity of the anticipated surge in consumer spending.

When it comes to thinking about marketing and advertising strategy as the restrictions begin to ease, its important that businesses recognise that consumers have also faced a huge amount of change and upheaval. New individual and collective habits have been formed to adjust to the realities of a year in lockdown that need to be understood first if they are to be changed.

This may appear to state the obvious, but good marketing is all about understanding where exactly your customer is in their own lives what they want from you, what they want to hear from you and how they want to hear it. In this context its important not to assume. Going back to the way things were before may be the right way to interact with customers, but it also may not.

The temptation for local businesses, understandably, will be to rush out of the blocks with their marketing to try and capitalise on the inevitable rush, but its hugely important to take the time to understand where customers are at, identify whether anything has changed and adapt the strategy accordingly.

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Mark Irwin

@Press Eye/Darren Kidd

Its not just a case of trying to understand where they are now in isolation, but also how they got there and, more importantly, where they might be going.

There is no doubt that a digital transformation, which was already underway, has been significantly accelerated in almost all areas of the economy. However again, it is important not to simply assume people always want more innovation in their consumer experience.

In the context of the economic uncertainty we will inevitably face for some time yet, trust is important. A good marketing strategy, therefore, should consider a mix of trusted sources of media, which may be more traditional in nature, as well as responding to new channels and trends.

The temptation will be to rush out of the blocks to try and get ahead, but the smart, sustainable play from an advertising perspective is to act quickly but having invested time and effort in listening in the first instance.

Valerie Ludlow, chief executive, ASG & Partners

Brands advertise to raise awareness, increase sales and build loyalty, using media appropriate to each specific objective. In general, small and medium-sized enterprises are more dependent on channels that drive customer engagement.

Covid caused massive shifts in the media landscape because confinement measures were instantly introduced, impacting the audience reach of out-of-home and cinema advertising, and print to a lesser extent.

Advertising spend was quickly replanned and channelled to in-house media, which as a consequence of lockdown grew exponentially.

TV viewership has climbed, but digital consumption has increased even more; the use of social platforms and streaming services have risen; gaming has also grown dramatically.

The consequences of the past year have helped audiences adapt to new ways of shopping, dining, socialising and much more a year where new habits have been formed and helped to keep consumers safe.

With the prospect of a post-lockdown world feeling more likely, local business will now need to rethink marketing strategies to encourage consumers back to the high street or into restaurants, persuade them of the advantages of real world experience over online convenience, and rebuild confidence around safety.

They will also need to revisit media plans and start to consider how to re-capture more mobile audiences who are no longer homebound.

Some aspects of marketing such as events and experiential may be slower to get back to normal, but with schools reopening and the return of employees (in one form or another) back to the office, advertising must re-adapt and re-form to the new needs that audiences will expect in this post-lockdown world.

Ulster Business

See the original post here:
Branding & marketing: Building back a brand as the economy reopens - Belfast Telegraph