Here are three scenarios:
1. The stock market crashes
2. Your company is acquired by your biggest competitor
3. Two of the largest vendors in your market merge
You’re in marketing. What do you do?
Marketing is easy when things are sailing along smoothly. But sooner or later, you are going to get an unexpected event because markets, competitors, vendors and customers change all the time. Nothing stays the same. If you expect things to always be smooth sailing, you may be living in another world. So one of the issues marketing needs to deal with is how to respond to the event.
When I checked my finance page yesterday after the market dropped six hundred points, I saw something that reminded me of the need to quickly market to the event. There was a pop-up ad promoting the book of some guy who predicted the last crash. There was also an ad for gold. These people were marketing to an event. Their response time for their campaign was several hours.
A previous client of mine was acquired by their largest competitor. It was an event. With several months to go before the acquisition close date, they were susceptible to a fall-off in sales. People didn’t know if they even had jobs, and who wants to buy from a company that may not be in business in three months. Their marketing group activated a campaign within a day to assure current clients and provide a rationale for the merger to prospects. The result was record sales in the month before closing.
In my current assignment, the number two and number three sized vendors just merged to become the largest vendor in the market. What did we do? Within an hour we pulled together our internal team, assessed the move, wrote a 1500 word paper, contacted 4000 prospects through an email campaign, issued a press and media release, and created a short video of the CEO speaking on the subject. The result: five article placements, increased site traffic, increased lead traffic, and lots of new opt-in subscribers.
Marketing to the event is a short term tactic. With today’s marketing tools, it is easy to react quickly and with a broad reach. The question is… can your team respond? It’s often the human element that is the weak link. So here are a few questions for marketing.
- When the event happens, who owns the response? Do you?
- Do you know who you will use to help respond?
- Does your management team understand and value a quick response?
- Do you have a prepared list of stakeholders with whom to communicate?
- Will your communication fit your messaging strategy?
- Will it be timely, relevant and actionable?
How can you…marketing, take advantage of a drop in the market? Are you going to be the next roadkill in the corporate budget, or are you going to lead your company? You can imagine the drill. Get ready.
Lee Stocking
Prairie Sky Group
Making Sales Cry With Qualified Leads
lee.stocking@gmail.com
651-357-0110 (24×7)