How Brands Can Engage with Consumers During COVID-19

March 24, 2020
9:04 pm

Posted by DMA Solutions Team

When it comes to brand marketing, response to this new normal is critical. If there’s anything we’ve learned from the past, it’s that brands who stay silent likely will lose trust. Don’t be the “no comment” or brand that goes silent out of fear!

Here are 3 of our top tips for staying engaged and relevant with consumers:

1. Set up a chatbot to answer all questions about your product being affected

No matter how much we want to, we can’t always be available for our customers 24 hours a day 7 days a week – but chatbots can! This is the perfect opportunity to update your current chatbot questions or even add chatbots to your website. Put yourself in a shopper’s mindset and consider the following questions that are potentially swirling through their mind:

Can the virus be transferred by touching produce that others have touched?
Will your brand be able to keep up with increase in buying demands?
Can you provide any coupons to ease our grocery costs?

Utilizing this feature will be a marketer’s saving grace as the inbox requests pile up over the next few weeks (if they haven’t already).

2. Create a blog post/email with recipes people can enjoy at home with loved ones

As the majority of the world adjusts to a new normal at home, it’s time to showcase readers what you can still offer them! For fresh produce, this is an opportunity to dive into the deeper meaning of what produce means to overall physical and mental health.

What we mean by this is that mealtime is growing to be the connecting point for loved ones – not just nourishment and looking at our phones at the table. Outside of working, watching tv, or getting dressed for the day, people still have to eat. But it’s our job as fresh produce marketers to show people that fresh can be a source of comfort food too!

Check out these examples for a little bit of inspiration:

Work Remote Breakfast Recipes That Inspire Productivity – California Giant Berry Farms
3 Quick Meals for the Work Remote Parent – Good Foods
15 Pantry Recipes for Emergency Preparedness – Budget Bytes
Easy Recipes to Cook While You’re Self-Quarantined – The New York Times
30+ Healthy Pantry Recipes – Love & Lemons
Delicious, Easy Recipes That Use All Your Pantry Staples – Good Morning America
Coronavirus Quarantine Recipes – It’s Time We Get Back in the Kitchen – USA Today

3. Revamp all messaging to match changing consumer lifestyles

We all know what’s happening outside. Don’t continue to stress the seriousness of this time in every blog post or consumer email send, because news stations and social media are doing that enough already. One acknowledgment is all you need; we can only read the same rewritten email from brands so many times.

Consumers aren’t hosting parties anymore, nor are they interested in baking an elaborate dessert or multi-course dinner. So continuing with the same content strategy is going to come with brand consequences: low engagement on posts at the very least, harsh comments and backlash at the worst.

Our best advice on navigating these waters? Choose to be a resource instead of a reporter! Brands that are intertwining with current realities are going to come out on top. For example, check out what Workweek Lunch is doing.

We understand that all of this can seem daunting at first. But our team at DMA Solutions is here to help you navigate these choppy waters. Fill out this form and one of our marketing experts will contact you within 24 hours to schedule time for us to help you – for free.