Two marketing warnings during the epidemic

After the outbreak of the new coronavirus pneumonia, most offline industries have suffered a huge impact, and many people have provided self-help guides and methods. In this article, the author will analyze from another perspective the prevention mechanisms that companies can establish in advance before an emergency occurs.

Let’s go back to January 23, 2020. That morning I finished my last work before the Spring Festival, and the Spring Festival holiday quietly began in the afternoon.

I remember that at that time, there were only three confirmed cases of the new pneumonia in my city, and there were only more than 800 cases in the whole country. Although I was afraid of the epidemic, I was more happy to go home and reunite with my family.

Now, the number of confirmed cases in China has risen to nearly 60,000. When I woke up this morning (2.13), I saw that there were more than 15,000 more cases. It is really scary. I have to say that the impact of this epidemic on us will be profound and lasting.

For ordinary people like us, the biggest impact of the epidemic may be the boredom of staying at home. We can’t go out to eat and drink, we can’t go to the cinema to watch movies, we can’t go shopping in crowded places. In short, we can’t go to places where crowds gather. We can only stay at home. Some people may even face unemployment.

As for another group of people, they can only stay at home. However, the epidemic has brought them not boredom but anxiety. They are worried that the cash flow that could be recovered during the Spring Festival in previous years will not be available this year. They are worried about how to minimize the losses. They are worried that if the epidemic is still not well controlled, whether the company can still hold on. They are anxious...

They are the business owners who have been deeply affected by the epidemic, especially those engaged in industries such as catering, tourism, and offline cinemas that require face-to-face services.

Of course, many companies are also actively taking self-help measures, such as temporarily carrying out online work, trying every possible way to remove inventory, and doing their utmost to recover some losses.

This article is not about how to save yourself, but I hope you will have adequate response measures when the next crisis comes.

If we don't learn something from every failure, then failure is really meaningless.

Regarding this epidemic, I have two very profound feelings or marketing warnings. I would like to share them with you, hoping that they can bring you some inspiration.

01 Establish multiple revenue channels

Presumably, during this epidemic, the physical enterprises that only have offline transactions as their source of revenue will face the greatest crisis. Once offline transactions are no longer possible, it means that the only source of revenue is cut off, but costs such as rent are still being spent.

On the contrary, if you have multiple sources of revenue, even if you make a loss offline, you can make up for it with revenue from other channels and get through this difficult time.

There are several supermarkets in our town, one of which is a chain supermarket called BBK. However, it is located in a remote area with little traffic, but it has never gone bankrupt. I think that even if it makes a loss every year, as long as the chain stores in other places can make money, it can survive.

For BBK, every store in every place is a source of revenue. If the one in the east doesn’t work, there are still stores in the west that can make money.

Let’s take another example. There are two braised food stores. One only does offline business, while the other, in addition to offline business, also has a booming online business.

The epidemic broke out and no one dared to go out. The store that only operated offline had no business and might have no profit for several months.

On the contrary, the other company also operates an online store. Although it has no offline business, it can still contact and conduct transactions with customers online. The online revenue may allow it to survive this crisis.

One company has only one offline revenue channel, while the other has both offline and online revenue channels. Even if one of the revenue channels is cut off, it will not suffer the fatal blow of "food shortage".

Many hotpot brands have produced packaged hotpot ingredients and sold them online. In addition to offline enrollment, training institutions also offer classes online or sell recorded courses. These can be said to have established multiple revenue channels just in case.

If possible, diversify revenue channels or create multiple revenue channels to prevent one channel from being damaged, causing the entire enterprise to fall into crisis.

The same is true for ordinary people like us. If the epidemic continues for a few more months, you cannot go to work and have no salary, how long can you hold on? Especially those friends who have mortgages or car loans.

02 Bring customers online

Another thing that impressed me deeply is that many physical stores do not have the awareness or measures to bring customers online. After customers come to the store to shop, they just let them leave, always assuming that they will come back. Even if they don’t come, there are other customers to come.

It has been 20 days since Wuhan was locked down on January 23. If you don’t move your customers online, whether you can sell goods is one thing. At this moment, you don’t even have the chance to contact them. If the epidemic continues, it means that you and your customers will be out of touch for several months.

When he was worried and panicked about the epidemic and needed care and help, you didn't even have the chance to send him a brief greeting. Products are cold, and only emotions can warm people's hearts.

Where does a company’s sense of security come from?

It is not cash flow, not technology, but customers. Only customers can bring a sense of security to a company.

Not all customers can give you a sense of security. Only customers who have connections with you can do so. There are two types of connections: physical connection and brand connection.

Robert Woodroffe, President of Coca-Cola, said:

"If all the Coca-Cola factories were burned down overnight, give me three months and I can rebuild the entire Coca-Cola factory."

Who gave him such confidence? Who makes him feel so safe?

It is the Coca-Cola brand that creates a connection between the brand and the customers, and to achieve this brand connection, it requires the superposition and mixing of countless physical connections.

Physical connection refers to basic information such as products, advertisements, activities, and content. Brand can be said to be the final product. For those physical stores that have no brand effect, if you do not move customers online and establish more physical connections with customers, you will not be able to connect with customers.

To put it bluntly, you can only feel at ease when the customer is in your "hands" and you can contact him at any time. Just like money, you can only feel at ease when it is truly in your hands.

When we talk about online, the common carrier is WeChat. After becoming friends with customers, you can provide them with valuable things and interact with them.

The "private domain traffic pool" is very popular and has received attention from many companies. It has also brought substantial effects to many companies. I think one of its greatest values ​​is that it can be reached repeatedly and multiple times to create more connections with brands.

03 Summary

In fact, everyone should have realized the above two points a long time ago, and I believe many friends have already taken relevant measures. However, this epidemic has made the two aspects mentioned above more obvious and important.

I didn’t want to write this article because I feel it can’t bring you any useful information, because everyone may already know what I said above. I’ll just treat it as another connection with you.

Difficulties will always pass. What we should think about more is, when difficulties come next time, will we be able to deal with them calmly?

I hope you are happy at this moment.

come on.

Author: Shao Wentao

Source: Qishao