This COVID-19 pandemic has launched the majority of small businesses into a state of panic as they struggle to find ways to stay relevant in these unprecedented times. But one benefit of this situation is that it provides the perfect opportunity to try out some new content marketing strategies.
The Benefits of Trying New Content Marketing Strategies during a Crisis
There is no industry that is immune to changing trends, which means that your company needs to be able to adapt to the inevitable changes that will take place throughout the industry. But if you have been using the same content strategies for quite some time now, then you have obviously not been adapting as often as you should be. By failing to do this, you make it more likely that you will join the list of companies who have fallen from grace because they couldn’t properly adapt.
With this current coronavirus pandemic spreading throughout the world, there has never been a better time to try out some of those content strategies that you have never attempted. This is because every industry is already heavily disrupted from this disease, so adjusting the content marketing plan for your business is not going to make things much more hectic.
By doing so, you can actually provide some great benefits as you complete the essential steps of handling any big industry disruption. These steps include refocusing, retooling, retrenching, and rebounding, which can help your company effortlessly adapt to a changing landscape. When it comes to content marketing changes, the refocusing and retooling steps are going to be the most important ones.
How to Refocus Your Content Marketing
This initial step revolves around the fact that your customers or clients are no longer going to have the same needs during a major disruption. For example, the COVID-19 pandemic has caused a significant increase in the number of virtual meetings being conducted, which means that customers and clients are now particularly interested in how to protect their content and privacy in these virtual meetings.
So if your current content marketing barely addresses this topic, then this should be corrected right away. That entails creating more content centered around best practices for virtual meetings or the ideal apps to use for this function. This is the type of content that is currently getting a large number of views, while many traditional content topics are likely not going to perform quite as well over the next few months.
In order to avoid missing out on this massive trend, you need to make sure that you are reconvening with your team and brainstorming exactly how you should refocus your content marketing to better address your customers’ changing needs.
How to Retool Your Content Marketing
Once you have decided what kind of focus you want your new content marketing to have, you should then complete an in-depth analysis of the arsenal of tools at your disposal. For example, if you don’t yet have certain content marketing elements like a blog or social media accounts, then these are things that should be started right away.
But even if you have these things, there may be tools that were not prioritized in the past. Now that the industry is going through a major change, it is more important than ever to have your content marketing firing on all cylinders.
This means that you need to start incorporating blog posts, social media posts, email campaigns, and several other newer groundbreaking tools into your content marketing plan. This will help you to develop a full-service online content marketing plan, which is more vital now considering that people are flocking to the internet while stay at home orders are in place.
6 Companies Who Have Successfully Implemented New Content Marketing Approaches
Ipsidy
This company is a major player in the identity management industry, which has been put under a lot of strain during the pandemic. But Ipsidy has managed to stand out from their struggling competitors thanks to the bold steps they took to adapt their content marketing approach.
Rather than continuing to concentrate on their pre-coronavirus topics, they have now shifted their focus to online threats of employees working from home. This is extremely timely now that the vast majority of employees are being forced to work from home rather than head into the office every day. As a result, their latest content has been performing very well since it covers topics that businesses are actively concerned about as a result of this pandemic.
TABS Analytics
In pre-coronavirus times, TABS Analytics was undergoing the construction of a comprehensive online database involving online grocery shopping trends. But with COVID-19 now shutting down the majority of the country, they have refocused their attention to specifically concentrate on publishing regularly updated information regarding the grocery shopping habits of customers during this pandemic.
This valuable information gives companies in other industries the ability to obtain updated information that they can use to appropriately adjust their own content marketing approaches and general operations in order to best serve their customers.
Avibra
This life insurance provider is another great example of a business that has properly adjusted their blog content topics and other content marketing approaches in order to address timely topics surrounding the coronavirus pandemic.
To account for a large portion of their client base being forced to move to fully digital communications, Avibra has transitioned into writing content on how people can maintain healthy and happy lives while remaining inside their homes.
SuperFat
Trying new content marketing approaches does not mean that you have to go off-brand, as proven by this natural and healthy snack food company. They have taken this opportunity to make a shift towards content focused on how their users are able to maintain ketosis while quarantined. By doing so, SuperFat has managed to make sure that its users are still receiving exceptional value from their content even while sales continue to be limited by this pandemic.
Campbell Soup Company
This well-known company proves that a business is never too big to try new approaches for their content marketing during times of crisis. How they have managed to do this during the COVID-19 pandemic is by creating content that is centered around creating a sense of community and acknowledging the efforts that the company is taking in order to help those individuals or businesses who are especially struggling during this pandemic. Their new comprehensive content marketing plan even includes elements like video advertisements to further enhance results.
Airbnb
In response to the significant decline in international travel during this crisis, travel industry companies like Airbnb have desperately needed to transition their content marketing plan in order to stay relevant to their audience. They have managed to do so by shifting the focus of their content to topics like how to enjoy vacation-like experiences without leaving home.
With the help of the tips and examples provided throughout this article, you should now have a much better understanding of why it is so important to try out new content marketing approaches. Therefore, you should take this new information and use it to help transition your own content marketing plan into something that will keep your business in the public eye during these trying times.
