These are strange times to be alive. Even stranger if you work in marketing.  Budgets are down. Consumer behavior is erratic. And for many businesses, the COVID-19 shutdown has brought operations to a slow crawl or a complete standstill.  How do you navigate marketing when your roadmap is shrouded in uncertainty? Should you stop communicating? Should you do more? What’s the plan here?  These are questions businesses are asking right now. As an agency, the answer is honestly pretty exciting.  Get back to basics  It may come off as crass, but the first step is to throw on your marketing hat and put everything else you’ve got going on at home to the backburner. We’re kind of past the crisis point here. The initial shock is gone. You’ve got a routine going. It’s time to get back to work.  Solving this marketing challenge is no different from any other one:  Figure out where your consumer is Understand what you’re trying to say Pick the right channel Target business objectives as efficiently as you can with the budget you’ve got.  None of the basics have changed.

There’s only one definitive statement we can make about the current digital marketing landscape. It’s nothing like we’ve seen before and it’s unlikely to look the same three, six or twelve months from now.

That’s it.

Beyond that, we’re all still working to figure this thing out and to determine the smartest move for what’s coming next. The coronavirus pandemic has turned everything on its head and for now, brands are flying blind a bit when it comes to developing a concrete strategy to communicate and connect with consumers. This is all new – but trends are absolutely beginning to illuminate.

I got together (virtually) with a couple colleagues to talk about the shifts we’re seeing and to explore the thought processes behind the differing digital marketing philosophies popping up in the marketplace. Here’s what we came up with.

What happens to digital marketing spend?

The million-dollar question. Do you continue spending or focus your efforts elsewhere? And if you do pull back, which alternatives bring the best results?

The answer here depends on too many factors to pinpoint one fix-all strategy. Smaller businesses may have a smaller budget to stretch, for example, but commonalities do exist:

Content creation and behavioral shifts

Stay at home orders and voluntary lockdowns have changed the at-home environment overnight. With people stuck in the house and unable to go out to get what they want, they’re having to figure out how to create alternatives at home.

This is establishing a unique scenario where consumers are seeking DIY or “how to” content like never before.

For example, right now “how to make coffee” is one of the fastest growing queries. It sounds funny at first but when you think about it, most people are used to stopping at Starbucks or Coffee Bean on their way to work. And maybe they know how to make a pot of plain drip coffee but haven’t a clue how to make great coffee like they’re used to.

You can quickly imagine how investment in a content strategy could pay off here. Answer the question in detail and then sell the products needed to replicate the result. This is a niche example but it’s not hard to extrapolate the thought process out across your industry of choice.