How to pandemic proof your content marketing
Hey there. If you’re reading this, perhaps you made some marketing blunders last year (like we all did!), and you want to make sure it doesn’t happen again. Or maybe you just had no idea how to approach content marketing during a pandemic.
You’re definitely not alone, friend. Give yourself a break.
Back in December 2019, I smugly prepared and scheduled 6 months’ worth of content in advance for the recruitment business I was working for. I was confident they’d be set for content marketing while I went away on maternity leave. Obviously, that isn’t how it went down with cheeky ole Covid. My mat leave cover was left with the hefty job of quickly rearranging the content plan and preparing new comms. No, our prepared articles about how to ask for a payrise weren’t as appropriate as we thought they might be, as thousands of people were losing jobs. (I’m so sorry, Alicia).
SO! Now is the perfect time to reflect on your Covid-19 marketing response as a business, and to develop a plan for your next stab at pandemic marketing content! (Lol no, hopefully you never have to do it again.)
The thing is, whether it’s a global pandemic, a small operational hiccup within your business, or perhaps an industry-specific crisis, it always helps to be prepared for when things go awry.
Here are my top tips on how to pandemic proof your content marketing.
Keep it fluid
Believe me, I am all for planning in advance. That’s why I offer 12-month content marketing plans to my clients, so we can whip up amazing, well thought out content that hits audiences right in the face when it’s most useful to them.
But let’s be honest, you have no idea what’s going to happen tomorrow, let alone in a few months’ time. 2020 sure taught us that.
So create a content marketing system that can easily be tweaked, rearranged and added to as things develop. Plan ahead for sure and have plenty of evergreen content at the ready, but leave a few gaps in your plan to create those last-minute, super relevant blog posts and e-blasts. Keep your content marketing fluid, so you can chop and change it as you go.
Share access
This should probably go without saying, but don’t leave one person in charge of everything. Make sure that more than one person in your business has access to passwords, platforms and prepared content. If a crazy pandemic hits, and said marketing person needs to take time off to homeschool children or care for people or something, at least you know you can still manage your marketing.
Regularly review
A great content marketing system includes regular review points, pandemics aside. While it’s great to have content planned out, you should take time once a quarter (maybe even once a week during a rapidly evolving pandemic!) to sit down and ask yourself some questions like:
Have our business goals shifted?
What does my audience need to hear right now?
What are my audience’s pain points and how can we address them?
Use these learnings to adjust your content marketing plan, and create new content resources as necessary.
Keep on top of news
I cannot stress this enough: find a reliable news source!
Your accountant’s weekly newsletter probably isn’t close enough to the source, and may not include all information that’s relevant for you/your customers.
In the case of a pandemic, regularly check your government websites to understand rules on restrictions, lockdowns and what your business can and can’t do.
News can be overwhelming during a pandemic, and you may want to stay away from it. That’s totally understandable! It can almost be a full-time job just keeping up with the changes and rules. It’s full on.
If you can’t face the news yourself, that’s fine. Just make sure your audience isn’t left in the dark when they need you most! Keep some padding in your marketing budget to bring on some help if you need someone to do all the research and digging for you.
Which brings me to my next point...
Have help on hand
Chances are, if a pandemic like Covid pops up, your attention is going to be pulled in a million different directions, both professionally and personally. It’s a lot to handle.
Whether you do your marketing yourself, you have an in-house resource, or you outsource to freelancers or agencies, it helps to have a network of reliable comms professionals on hand should you need it. For example, skilled copywriters can handle crisis mode with you by drafting up suitable messages that are on-brand and relevant to your audiences.
Consider doing a struggling freelancer a solid during uncertain times, and outsource what content marketing work you can to someone with the right skills to free up your time and keep your customers or clients informed.
Choose the right scheduling tools
Many businesses these days use third party apps and platforms to schedule blogs, emails and social media posts. These tools are GREAT!
But when you need to make changes to your scheduled content fast, make sure you know exactly what that involves. It might be a full days’ work to press pause on all your upcoming scheduled content which isn’t relevant right now. Not to mention drafting up replacement messages that address the current situation.
Tools like Later and Hootsuite have a drag and drop function so can very quickly move posts around, which is very helpful!
Prep your emergency comms plan
We don’t like to think about what happens if things get hectic, but we should. Even a loose plan can set you up for success when times get tough.
Consider things like:
Prioritisation of important messages – how will you ensure the most relevant and essential content is at the top of your comms hierarchy, especially when importance is shifting so significantly and so often?
Response time – how can you make sure your business gives audiences up-to-date information when things are changing so fast? It’s all well and good to create an email outlining your change of business operations, but if this takes a week to send out, the government may have changed things and you may be sharing outdated information.
Communication frequency – do you increase your marketing touchpoints during a pandemic to ensure clients are in-the-know? Or do you dial it back to give them time to process and deal with more important things? It’s important that you don’t overdo it with the comms, but also don’t UNDERdo it if your audiences need you. During Covid, I wanted to know what local cafes were doing takeaway and delivery options, but I didn’t care at all that the people who worked for company I purchased my breast pump from a year ago were all working from home now.
Opportunities – okay, this is NOT a call to take advantage of the situation. (People KNOW that calls to ‘lose your quarantine fifteen with this special weight loss program’ are a load of BS and are companies intentionally preying on people doing it tough. BUT, pandemics give you an awesome opportunity to pause, look at what’s going on and really understand your audience and business operations better. So take the opportunity. Audit your content. Connect with your audience in new, creative ways. Display your empathy and your humanness when it matters most. Brainstorm how you can live and breathe your values even more vividly.
I saw some horrendous Covid-19 marketing responses from businesses last year. Some said too much, some said too little. Some tried to make light of the situation but came across as insincere. Others were too serious, and ended up alienating their audiences.
I think we can forgive them, though, considering we were all flying by the seat of our pants a little!
We’ve learned all about marketing in a pandemic, and I hope we’ll take these learnings onboard and apply them to future content marketing (just hopefully not in the same way again!).
If you’d like to chat about your pandemic content marketing, or connect with a handy comms professional to help you get back on track after Covid, please contact me. I’m here to help!
