Apr 9, 2020
Hello, this is Pam. Welcome to another pandemic episode of B2B Marketing and More.
IN this episode I am going to talk about a question I received after attending the Social Media Strategies Summit “Ask Anything” webinar. Here is the question from Lauren:
I work for a non-profit organization. In the current situation, what’s the appropriate way to ask for donations? or is it not at all?
Lauren, I love your question. Frankly, I can modify this question for salespeople: I need to reach out to prospects to build up my sales pipelines, is it appropriate to do cold prospecting or not at all?
So the truth is, we are all asking ourselves the same questions and trying to figure out what is appropriate for our own target markets and audiences. We are all looking for answers and trying to figure out appropriate actions. We’re asking what is the right thing to do, even myself.
So before answering Lauren’s question I shared this blog post with her. The name sof the blog post is 5 Media Principles Guiding Google’s Media Team in the Wake of the COVID-19 outbreak from Joshua Spanier. He made it very clear that there is no playbook for times like these, I 100% agree. So here is what he’s found is that crisis can provide clarity.
Here are the 5 principles that his media team follows and I thought it applies to marketing and sales teams:
I told Lauren there are two principles that are critical for her to be aware of: put it in the right context and be helpful. Is there way she can think of reaching out to her donors in the right context? If she can’t think of anything on her own, can she brainstorm with her team or management? Get others to help her come up with creative ideas. Again, put it in the right context.
In this trying time, what we say and how we say it matters. I told Lauren that she knows her donors well, she needs to trust her gut on how and what is the best way to reach out at this time.
BTW, I also shared the following ‘excerpt with her. This is a response to a question on Reddit that’s similar to Lauren’s. This marketing manager is in the travel and hospitality industry which has been very heavily hit by the pandemic. What he or she said resonates with me. Here is the excerpt from Reddit user: LobsterOnTheLand
“I'm in the tourism business in Central America. The outlook is pretty grim for the short term. Realistically, no one will be traveling until next fall at the soonest - and even then tourism will be WAY down. We've decided that marketing and promoting our trips aren't the best choice right now - it won't make us look good, and no one is thinking about traveling anyway. Instead, we're doing a few other things:
- Reaching out to customers who have trips planned with us through the end of 2020 and updating them on the travel status in our country, and how their trip will be affected. It's important to keep people updated.
- Reaching out to good (repeat) customers and just wishing them well in this difficult time.
- Working on promotional content and website updates that we can use a few months from now when the time is right.
- Mostly we are just slacking off though, because there isn't a whole hell of a lot to do, and profits will be almost nil this year.”
Honestly, I don’t know how LobsterOnTheLand and his or her company is going to make it, but what he or she said resonates with me.
If you are struggling, just be aware that everyone is struggling as well. We are trying to pivot and do something different. We’ll make mistakes, but we will adapt and learn along the way.
Hang in there, my friends. Reach out if you have any questions.
Stay healthy and be well. Take care.