Sometimes marketing has to take a backseat so your business team can focus on other concerns. Prioritizing operational changes, responding to turnover, and even the economic tumult of the pandemic can take center stage. Still, it's important to have a plan for firing your marketing engine back up.

Marketing after the pandemic's rush of business impacts can be difficult, especially as your team faces burnout and lingering effects in supply chains and general consumer confidence. So before you restart all of your old marketing campaigns, assess your company's new situation. Take these steps so you can make the best decision for your current and future needs. 

Read the Room After Tough Times 

Depending on the products or services you offer and the niche you serve, your client base may not be ready to respond to your marketing efforts. For example, if you own a local restaurant, take stock of how your community is reopening. Not only will this tell you if your target market is ready for promotions, but it can also tell you if those promotions should be for eat-in or drop-off options. If you're a vendor for local restaurants, gauging if your business customers are open to new furniture and supplies can be even trickier.  

Start your efforts with empathetic and understanding messages, not hard sells. Branding marketing campaigns are an excellent opportunity to cultivate relationships and be the brand on your audience's periphery without being in their faces. 

Also, your marketing team should research new priorities and pain points for your target audience. Your old buyer personas may need extensive edits. Determine if your customers are now more price-conscious, are increasingly interested in virtual and online options, or have other priorities and preferences. 

Start With Marketing to Your Current Customer Base 

Retaining current customers is almost always more cost-effective than creating a relationship with new consumers or picking up a lapsed relationship with old customers. If you're testing the waters and staying budget-conscious, this strategy balances ROI, customer relationships, and employee needs. 

Focusing on your current customer base is also strategic because: 

• You already have some insight into their present needs and new priorities. 
• You can respond to their continued loyalty with discounts and personalized service. 
• Their demand for your products and services is more predictable. 

Just like you assessed your target market's existent needs and pain points, it's also important to know how your employees are doing. If your team shrank over the past year, a sudden burst of marketing goals can overwhelm employees on the verge of burnout. At the same time, steady growth in marketing projects offers them job security and new purpose. 

Customer-Centric Service Will Always Matter 

According to a Harvard Business Review analysis, a focus on building trust with customers should always be at the core of your revenue departments: 

"As companies rely increasingly on personal data that they obtain with consent from consumers...they also have the opportunity to consider building even more loyalty and differentiation by designing more transparent interfaces for privacy controls." 

Instead of just looking through a marketing lens, consider all aspects of your revenue departments, especially customer service. B2B and B2C consumers are looking for reliable relationships and positive buying experiences that don't add to their stress or make them feel taken advantage of.  

Take this opportunity to start long-term marketing strategies that interweave throughout all stages of a customer's interactions with your brand.  

This allows you to: 

• Identify real-time changes in their wants and needs 
• Get in front of problems that can destabilize a good relationship 
• Build more robust profiles so your promotions align with customers 
• Focus on the relationship first 

Marketing tactics should be personalized to each customer and be based on what they need and expect from your business. People remember trustworthiness, credibility, and empathy far more than an unneeded discount or multiple emails that don't address their needs. 

Once your current audience is in a great place, you can use your tested approaches with relationships that lapsed during the pandemic. Identify what pain points made them leave and what pain points they have now as they also start taking their first post-pandemic steps. Then you can approach them with an understanding of what service offers help you both. 

Start Your New Post-Pandemic Marketing Strategies With KCTV5 

Restarting your advertising processes can seem risky and stressful, but marketing is at the core of building your business. Take the pressure out of the equation by working with our team of digital marketing experts at KCTV5. We have fresh insights into local marketing trends and the support services you need to jumpstart your customer relationships for a strong 2021.