Can Your Marketing Hit the Pandemic’s Regional Curve Ball?
The message flashed on the television screen: Stay Home. Stay Safe.
It came with audio that voiced the same. It was a message delivered for national audience, across the USA.
It’s now out of date. I’m not knocking it. Just stick with me.
It’s out of date from a national standpoint.
There’s a new wave of local, regional, and national marketing challenges that’s just arrived. It’s the latest curve ball thrown at marketers charged with keeping up with the entire business, on the entire, territorial landscape.
Suddenly, marketing to certain parts of the country beginning to open their business doors differs from marketing to parts of the country maintaining tighter stay at home orders.
The ‘one size fits all’ national approach to marketing has ceased to become the best, most effective approach. The ripples across the country mean that marketing in states and regions of the USA starting to open their business doors should look and sound different than those that remain under tighter lockdowns.
And that goes for B2C, B2B, B2B2C, and everybody in between.
The curve ball that marketing never expected has just arrived, and you’ve got to recognize this pitch.
Quickly.
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Jacksonville, Florida just reopened its beaches. Some disagreed with the move.
Texas is slowly beginning to reopen. Georgia is allowing some businesses to reopen, under certain conditions. Tennessee’s governor isn’t extending his state’s stay at home order past April 30. Some businesses there are reopening April 27.
Here’s a USA Today article with updates on other states, and one for the Northeastern United States.
I’m just dealing with the facts. With what is, and where. There’s movement to reopen businesses and jump start the economy in certain parts the United States.
Whether you agree with the easing of restrictions is another issue. But the fact of the matter is that your audience in any of the above-mentioned states will be getting out of the house. And if you do business in Atlanta, Nashville, Austin, or Cleveland those folks won’t be sitting in front of their computers 24/7. Not anymore. Look outside, check the weather. Spring has arrived.
Suddenly telling people to ‘Stay Home and Stay Safe’ takes on new meaning.
Hurting business owners in parts of the country beginning to ease restrictions may not necessarily want to hear that blanket message. I’m sure they want everybody to stay safe, and healthy. No question. But they don’t want people to stay away from their businesses. They want people to safely engage with their businesses.
Many residents of reopening states are now at the starting gate. Better yet, call the starting gates their front doors, waiting for the starting bell to allow them to swing open. Albeit with continuing social distancing, guidelines, and restrictions.
Marketing needs to read this regional curve ball and be prepared to engage multiple audiences. Locally, regionally, and nationally — differently.
The one national size game plan will not necessarily fit all.
Time for the Field Marketer to rise and shine.
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Local, regional, and national marketing isn’t anything new. Just ask any national fast-food restaurant chain. Or automotive dealer. Those B2C companies generally know how to do market across the board, on all territorial fronts. (Sure, fast-food and car manufacturers are also involved in B2B and B2B2C, but let’s keep this simple.)
Now dive deeper and consider those B2B Marketers, Professional Services Marketers, and B2B Technology Companies who predominately market on a national (or global) basis… again, let’s stick within the United States.
B2B Marketing. Professional Services. B2B Technology. As examples. Massively booming areas of business, at all stages of start-up, growth, and maturity that have been impacted by the pandemic.
The vast majority of the time those enterprise marketing leaders seek opportunities wherever they get ’em in the United States. Generally speaking. Customers could be down the street in their hometown, or they could reside anywhere from Florida to Alaska to Hawaii. And their national marketing campaigns usually reflect that. Efforts may be segmented by territories, or states, to support the local or territorial rep, but I’d say local stuff is countered, complemented, and more often than not outweighed by the blanket national efforts.
Generally speaking.
Yes, some conduct road shows. Yes, some take part in local and regional business events and are supported by field marketing. And I’ve enjoyed the regional, owned and operated half-day business conference. It’s always been my favorite for lead generation and making territorial sales people and business partners happy.
So let’s stick with that local and regional angle.
Instead of being a fraction of marketing efforts, the spotlight now shines locally, and regionally, with a twist.
Your marketing team may still be under lockdown where they reside. No travel. The inability to travel. Or a reluctance to — even to areas beginning to open. This isn’t to say that business life is fully back to normal in some states vs. others. Far from it. It’s just the beginning. But we do know people in states easing restrictions will be on the move.
So your marketing team may or may not be at home.
Your audiences may or may not be at home.
Yet your marketing team still needs to make things happen. Lead generation, sales enablement, revenue opportunity, the works…everywhere.
Suffice it to say, local and regional activities are going to take the marketing lead over national efforts.…with creative business twists, in compliance with healthcare guidelines and government mandates and restrictions.
That pandemic curve ball is starting to look like a Rubik’s cube of a map.
Like the big, folding, paper map one I used to have in my glove compartment in 1989.
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So how do you market to an audience when some are at home, while others are not?
In different parts of the country?
B2C has more experience with this. B2B, not nearly as much. But all are facing the Spring and Summer 2020 curve ball.
For those who follow my writing, it’s no secret that I’ll say local radio stations fit the bill. 90% of the USA listens to broadcast radio, especially when working from home.
And there’s your #WFH B2B audience. Especially those who are tech-driven.
But radio has missed it. And B2B tech marketing doesn’t know what to do with it.
Strike One, and here comes the next pitch.
As the weather warms and the restrictions ease, no matter who your audience is, they’re not sitting at home in front of their computers watching webinars and virtual events when it’s sunny and 80 degrees outside. Nor are they watching television. Sure, they still have to work. But their laptops are now flooded with marketing clutter for the homebound. Yet only a tiny handful in B2B use the radio airwaves to avoid the clutter and reach their audience. Unfortunate, because they have an immediate, wide-open playing field.
You could be on the radio today, in targeted parts of the USA, if you so choose.
But wait, there’s more.
For those looking for a creative local and regional outlet to replace now-defunct conferences and trade shows, consider the local drive-in. Yep, you read that right. Consider the local drive-in movie theater for a marketing business event, if you have a drive-in in one of your target territories. If not, consider a temporary, pop-up location. (Working with all necessary local and state government and healthcare authorities, of course.) Consider the drive-in for cost, creativity, excitement, and the opportunity to crush bad webinars and rushed, time-consuming virtual events that keep people stuck inside while the summer wind blows outside.
The drive-in can be the heart of an integrated, local and regional marketing campaign. A next-generation marketing conference, one that matches and evolves with the regional pandemic business requirements and challenges of the times.
Third, and for those tech inclined, I hope you took this time to clean up your tech stack, and your customer data. (But why do I get the feeling most didn’t?) Those on top of their martech game can employ and deploy mobile, digital, geolocation, geofencing, account-based marketing, customer experience, and digital tools to reach your outdoor-oriented, regionalized target segments.
But, why do I get the feeling most aren’t ready for that?
Because you need to get busy, now.
Oh, that’s right. It’s because of my Black Friday experience in downtown Chicago — over four years ago. When major retail and finance outlets — with local media — had the opportunity to engage customers in a specific part of the country, and didn’t. It cost, and lost, millions.
While customers stood in the street, in the cold rain.
Please tell me the tech, sales, service, and customer experience strategies for event-based marketing efforts have improved over the four years.
But, for the last time, why do I get the feeling they haven’t?
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Forbes just published Will 2020 Be The Year of RV Travel?
This will tell you which way the marketing wind is blowing across the USA. Everybody is getting out of the house. Many, on the road. They’re putting down their devices and picking up a fishing pole. Or riding a mountain bike.
Regionally, to start.
Everywhere, eventually. Across America.
They’re not staying home.
And not sitting down for more indoor webinars, and virtual events.
Your national messaging and positioning will need to reflect that. It’ll have to give way to more generic, but still effective, general branding in favor of more focused and customized targeted territorial marketing.
Here comes the second pitch. You need to be able to hit that curve ball.
Like your audience, that pitch could be inside, outside, or right over the heart of the plate. It’s up to you to have an approach, recognize it, and make the most of it.
Tony Compton holds two degrees from Loyola University Chicago: a 1987 B.A. in Communication and a 1995 MBA. He has held a number of marketing and business leadership positions over the past three decades.
