If, like me, you’re doing business in the Houston/Galveston region, the world has changed dramatically post-Harvey. Customer and client needs and priorities have shifted, and marketing plans need to catch up – and fast.
Marketing messages, product and service offerings and target audiences need to be revisited. I call it recovery marketing.
Ask yourself:
- What can my business do to help my clients and customers recover?
- What products and services do they need most urgently now and in the coming months?
- Are there new audiences who need my services?
- What are my new marketing messages and how do I reach my target audiences?
RECOVERY FOR CLIENTS AND BUSINESS
Staying with your pre-Harvey marketing message may come across as insensitive and out of step with your audience’s needs. Think about what your clients and customers need and how you can help. Craft your marketing accordingly so that your clients can benefit from your products and services.
For some small to medium businesses, effective recovery marketing can be a means to survival. Studies show that an estimated 40 percent of small businesses impacted by a disaster don’t reopen.
MARKETING IDEAS FOR A POST-HARVEY WORLD
Here are a few that I hope spark your own recovery marketing ideas:
- My company, Community Strategies, is offering years of experience in internal and external corporate communications, including crisis communications and recovery marketing services, to current and potential clients.
- Moody National Bank, a community bank with 15 locations in the Houston/Galveston region, quickly revised its marketing to let customers know that it was “Here to Help.” Even before floodwaters had receded, we rolled out communications on a series of recovery programs that included waiving ATM and checking overdraft fees. The bank also waived penalties for early withdrawal from Certificates of Deposit for emergency purposes and offered short-term, low-interest disaster recovery business loans to help businesses jumpstart rebuilding.
- Draker Cody, Inc., a business management consultant, is offering business recovery services to help companies with human resource, operations management, documentation and other issues post-Harvey.
- A Houston sign company with two decades of experience is reaching to customers to see if they need new signs or repairs.
- A developing subdivision can market the fact that they didn’t flood in Hurricane Harvey.
- A North Galveston County custom homebuilder can reach out to his past new-home customers in the Dickinson/League City area to see if they or their friends need recovery/rebuilding services.
- Galveston hotels facing the post-Harvey tourism dip are marketing to recovery response services that need short-term housing for crews working in the Houston/Galveston area.
- We’re all in this together. If we focus our talents and resources on recovery and helping each other, we’ll all recover more quickly and be stronger in the long term.
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