Helping companies reboot their business

The pandemic has had a massive impact on a huge number of brands.  Customers not able to get easy access to their favoured brands (think toilet rolls…) and perhaps they have now substituted for in stock brands, employees furloughed, and offices shut. 

Unfortunately, in a sales downturn, often the marketing and promotional side of their business are often cut too, both in terms of spend and people to focus on these areas.  But brands have to let customers know they are up and running again (unless they are Greggs, or Amazon!), no matter whether they are a product, service; B2B and B2C.

For some this means no researching, no NPD progression, no signing new customers up, getting stock out to them virtually, no making them aware the business is open.   And it’s causing great harm.

So how can you help?

Encourage them to start promoting their businesses again, and PR is one of the best ways to do that.  There isn’t a lot of noise out there at the moment, so now is the time.

Holidays

When we worked with NotOnTheBeach – providing their PR agency with models of all shapes and sizes for their #thisbikinican campaign, it was so successful they were nominated for a PR weekly award of campaign of the month, along with an increase in web hits and their social also saw an uplift.  Imagine if holiday companies produced a summer 2020 campaign now, perhaps encouraging people to take holidays in the UK or go to places with indoor pools, mini staycays, or even cherry picking the countries that are allowing UK nationals in. 

How could they do that?  Mini beaches in town centres, promo people wandering around in the quintessentially English old-style swimming costumes, sending an ice cream van around certain areas  – giving out free ice creams and a discount on holidays, getting key social influencers to pretend to have a holiday at home, the list goes on!

Products

We are currently working with Dirty Burger, promoting their chains in key locations, by handing out leaflets and “talking dirty” to customers outside competitor burger outlets (case study to come ?).  Now is a great time to launch new products, and they need your help.  Eco products were popular before lockdown, and whilst eco has subsequently taken a back seat, this is only temporary.  If they are an eco brand you could encourage them to market in a more sustainable way.  Using promo sampler staff, videos and email marketing. 

Food takeaways

There has been an increase in afternoon tea companies who have been able to provide this for families, by delivering direct to the customer.  Pizza companies are trying to cope and have increased their delivery distance to encourage more customers to purchase.  But how have they been marketing this?  Generally via Facebook, which isn’t as effective now as perhaps it was in week one or two of the lockdown.  You could encourage them to leaflet to certain areas, or perhaps spend a bit more on PPC.  Get them to use regional social influencers to promote their offerings (we are all a little fed up of cooking now!).  Check out how Gousto took advantage of the lockdown, whilst still being charitable.  It cost them very little, but they are now swarming with customers.

Home improvements

We have worked with a number of major DIY retailers over the years, providing staff to hand out leaflets, quirky promotions in local towns to generate interest, and currently providing marshals in the pandemic. 

There has been an increase in home improvements during lockdown – as people are not able to go out and spend as much money on experiences, and some are furloughed, they have instead been ploughing their money into home improvements.  What PR could they do?  Well lots of customers have been struggling getting stock from the larger businesses, so have found other, smaller and more niche businesses to order from.  These could easily take advantage of these new customers with some more sophisticated email marketing campaigns.  Perhaps doing a competition encouraging customers to take pictures of their home improvements using their products and uploading them on a website and social media.  Extra points if you have done something completely different with the products… using artificial grass inside, creating a living room in the garden… who knows!

So, when you a new business comes to you, a business comes back to you, or you are looking to help out local businesses – helping them to get back up on their feet – come up with some great ideas and let us help!  We are happy to talk through them with you and provide some (wo)man power! You can contact us by using the form below or by calling us on 0844 800 0071.