Researchers and staff at home? It’s an opportunity…
17th April 2020 - Last modified 15th November 2023
#3 in our blog series: Marketing Communications During the COVID Crisis.
With the current COVID-19 crisis, it is likely that many of your customers – at least those that aren’t heavily involved in the diagnosis or treatment of the virus – now have spare time as they are unable to carry out their normal work at home. This can be an opportunity for you to refine your marketing strategy and develop new content.
Customer interviews – case studies and testimonials
In our first COVID-19 blog, we suggested customer testimonials by webcam. Since then, lock-downs have become more extreme, and so as your customers are unable to work in the lab, they may well have more time to talk about their research. So, this is a good opportunity to work with your happy customers to generate good marketing content in the form of case studies and testimonials; many will be more than pleased to talk about their research. We recommend:
• Identifying the customers that you think would be good for a case study/testimonial
• Develop a list of questions
• Set up a call; this can be for either a written case study and/or a video interview. The best person to make the first contact is the customer’s main company representative (usually a sales person or application specialist)
Depending on internal time availability and also expertise, you may wish to use an external partner for interviews and writing.
We are highly experienced at interviewing customers and writing case studies; we also provide a video editing service so can help with all aspects of this process. contact us to see how we can help.
Strategic communications review
As most companies have got over the initial crisis mode of working out how best to work remotely, the current situation has presented a time to reflect. It is a good time to develop or amend marketing plans for business after COVID-19 so that your company hits the ground running when life returns to normal.
It is also a great time to talk to your customers to generate some market insight, as many researchers may be able to take the time to respond to market surveys and provide feedback whilst working from home. Now is a good time to make contact with your customers and use the results of the insight to develop your enhanced strategy.
It is not often in business that there is time to breathe and take stock. We now have the opportunity to evaluate, adjust and move forward, better armed with greater insight. Including an external partner in this review process can provide additional benefits, offering objectivity and an alternative perspective.
Alto Marketing is able to assist with strategy development and audits of current marketing activities to analyse how best to adapt your marketing to the “new normal”. We can help with:
• Marketing audits
• Customer interviews
• News planning
• Adapting to new working practices
• Marketing strategy
It’s certainly a time to think differently and an external perspective can often be helpful with that. To support you with this, we’re offering up to one hour of strategic marketing consultation, completely free of charge during this COVID-19 crisis, with absolutely no strings attached. We believe that we’re all in it together, and will all emerge stronger if we work together.
So, if you think you might benefit from an objective, obligation-free review of your marketing strategy at this difficult time, don’t hesitate to get in touch.
Upskilling the team
Some of our clients are using this quieter period to bring their sales teams up to date with the latest tools and product information.
It’s a great opportunity for product managers to update and reiterate the latest advice and guidance to their respective sales teams. Often products are subject to updates and footnotes are added to existing materials. Now would be the perfect time to bring all of your sales tools up to date.
Part of this process may be the introduction of new tools designed to work remotely such as product demo videos and remote learning. The current situation requires a different approach and an enhanced tool kit.
Alto can support with:
• Product videos
• Digital and print collateral
• White papers
• Q&A’s
Alto Marketing can support with all aspects of your communications strategy, management, content development and promotions. See how we can help – take advantage of our no-strings-attached, objective review.
This is the third in our blog series Marketing Communications During the COVID Crisis. Read our earlier blogs here:
1. Lead generation in an era of postponed exhibitions and F2F time