How to plan your marketing content during a pandemic

With all that's been happening in the world, our day-to-day lives can feel a bit all over the show - not to mention our marketing! And as we get back into the swing of things in Alert Level 1, it's a great time to tackle your marketing head-on.

For marketers specifically, the past few months have been very uncertain. Many of us may have changed from running ad campaigns with large budgets to now working with next to no budget and a feeling of uncertainty about if we should even be in market at all!

At Terabyte, we believe that content marketing is essential for all types of businesses. Showing up to your audience on social, through email marketing or even through low-level advertising at this time is a great opportunity to build a trusting relationship with your audience and to increase brand awareness. But then the question turns to, 'but how do we show up during Level 1?'.

If you're struggling to be consistent with your marketing efforts or are stuck because you're not sure what the world will look like next week, month or year - we're with you! It's totally normal to feel that way (both on a personal and business level), but it's good to get some sense of normality back into your marketing so your audience can feed on this as well. While COVID-19 might not be great for sales, it is a great opportunity to tap into a new audience, new followers or engage with current ones.

Here are our tips to help take your marketing to the next level - yep, even during a crisis!

Use a Content Calendar

Utilising a content calendar will allow you to plan all marketing activities and help you keep track of them. We're talking social media, emails and advertising. With all of these marketing mediums plotted into a calendar, you can coordinate them and ensure you have the same key messages working throughout. But how do you go about creating a calendar?

• Mark out important dates, sales or activations.
  For most of us, our content calendars will be guided by holidays, sales cycles or business activations. Plot these into your calendar first, so you're reminded to drive all your content back to these.

• Treat all platforms differently.
  It's likely you have different audiences on different platforms, so when creating a content calendar, plan all social, advertising, email marketing, (the lot!) out separately. This will remind you that you are speaking to different people at different times.

• Don't be afraid to repost.
  You don't need to post original content every single day! Fill out your calendars with reposts from your audience, reviews or even articles or news that your audience will enjoy reading about. This will also help build your brand presence as a reputable source.

Plan and Work Ahead

This is easier said than done, we know! We recommend blocking out an afternoon to sit down and really focus on simply planning your content, including your goals, deals and offers you may have over the foreseeable future. Now, normally we'd plan at least a month in advance, however, if under the circumstances your business is likely to change, take it 2 weeks at a time.

By planning and working ahead, you're able to make sure your messages and content is on-brand, but it also allows for flexibility in case the unexpected happens (it is 2020 after all!).

Focus on Brand Awareness, Not Sales

With the recent environmental shift, it's likely your audience may be more cautious about making purchases - and that's ok! Shift your marketing messages to drive back to brand awareness rather than sales, so that when your audience does come to make a purchase, they remember your brand and have built up some trust with you too.

Some examples of brand awareness posts could be:

• Testimonials from happy customers
• Behind the scenes in your office
• Facts about your brand

Focus on Free Strategies

If you've had to put the brakes on your advertising budget, it doesn't mean it's all over! Instead, focus on nailing your organic content and ways you can improve the findability of your website for free.

Did you know 70% of marketers say SEO is more effective than PPC? Improving your search engine optimisation (SEO) is a great way to make sure that when your customers are searching for you, they can find you! It's also something that can be done fairly easily and with a low budget.