Guest post by Sabri Suby.
The world is changing rapidly, and ever-present fear and uncertainty can make it a difficult time for those of us who run businesses. But in reality, now’s the perfect time to get on the top of your game and take advantage of the situation.
Instead of contracting in fear, it’s critical that businesses take positive steps to keep their brands alive and thriving during a crisis. In fact, some of the world’s most successful businesses were formed or hit their stride during a financial crisis – and there’s no reason yours can’t too.
Find inspiration from history
If you’re considering pulling your marketing spend in the current crisis, take a word of warning from the story of Post, which was the category leader in the ready-to-eat cereal category in the 1920s. During the Great Depression, Post cut back significantly its advertising budget and rival Kellogg’s doubled its advertising spend, investing heavily in radio and introducing a new cereal called Rice Krispies, featuring Snap, Crackle and Pop. Kellogg’s profits grew by 30% and the company became the category leader, a position it has maintained for decades.
As recently as 2009, Amazon’s sales grew by 28% during the GFC thanks to its innovative new products, most notably its new Kindle products. On Christmas Day 2009, Amazon customers bought more ebooks than printed books – a world first at the time. As a result, in the minds of consumers, Amazon became an innovative company by introducing a lower-cost alternative to cash-strapped consumers.
More people are home, so reach them
During a crisis, people are at home, looking for solutions to their problems. According to an internal Facebook report obtained by the New York Times, U.S. traffic from Facebook to other websites increased by 50% within the past week. There’s no doubt that similar statistics are true in other countries too.
As your competitors are contracting in fear, now is the time to push forward and be very aggressive with your marketing because you can get those eyeballs for cheaper, get better cut through and a bigger share of voice.
The emphasis now needs to be on building prospects and engineering a sales funnel that’s not focused on immediate conversion. People may not be buying right now but they are certainly researching, and when the crisis blows over, they certainly will be buying.
This is a great time to put out information and nurture a list of prospects that are great candidates for what you sell. And then when things do blow over, the economy does snap back, you’re going to be in a position where you’ve developed a relationship. When they’re ready to buy, who do you think they’re going to buy from?
Stay together, even if you’re apart
When it comes to business’s structure, it’s important to keep your teams as connected as possible. At King Kong, we’re doing daily chats and video meetings on Google Hangouts, and we even recreated Friday drinks by all having a huge video chat with everyone in the company. It’s a great opportunity to blow off some steam and feel connected.
Demonstrate positive leadership and make sure that your people understand that this thing is going to end, whether it’s in six weeks or in six months. Connect with your staff virtually, remind everyone to still have fun and continue to work hard because the business is pushing forward and will come out stronger.
Look after your body and your mind
Understand that news channels are a business in themself: they are in the business of really extracting as much eyeball attention as they possibly can. You don’t want to be oblivious to what’s going on around you, but schedule time for news and limit yourself to the amount of news that you’re consuming. It could be a 10 to 15-minute diet of how much news you want to consume in your day.
Instead of existing in a reactive state, get on the front foot and invest in bettering yourself and bettering your business. Buy courses, buy books, make sure that you’re still actively exercising, and keep yourself in that positive frame of mind, because this too shall pass.
History has given us examples of many businesses that emerge stronger from testing times are those who have looked for opportunities instead of looking at challenges. They’re the ones that always come out the other end in a much stronger position while everybody else is frozen in fear.
About Sabri Suby
Sabri Suby is the founder of Australia’s fastest-growing digital marketing agency, King Kong, and author of international bestseller Sell Like Crazy.
Having originally founded King Kong in 2014 from his bedroom, Sabri has bootstrapped the company since day one and in under five years has successfully built a team of 61 specialists now achieving $20million+ in total revenue (year to date). As a pioneer in the digital marketing arena, his business has impacted 250,000 businesses in 42 different countries, and has generated in excess of $1.33 billion in sales for him and his clients.
