Communications Archives - Kristina's Media

How your Marketing can Stand Out and Survive during COVID19

We are all in a pandemic, and it blows. People are dying, the economy is volatile, people are worried about getting corona virus resulting in medical debt—or worse—making their preexisting health conditions worse. While it is difficult to address and discuss, it is important to acknowledge as business owners and marketers how we approach marketing during COVID19. We have to understand where humanity is and where their priorities are at this time.

How are you standing out—appropriately—during Covid-19?

Be Price Aware, but not Damaging

Based on the daily news, we are seeing record levels of unemployment. While that is a critical metric of consumer confidence, we also have to take into consideration how even those with money or jobs, while still financially secure, are looking at their funds and being more cautious with their money.

Discounts and special terms are in place for higher priced items like cars, but we aren’t seeing the traction. Usually luxury goods are a good indicator of how serious things are, and even luxury goods are seeing a drastic reduction in conversions.

I have seen many businesses focus heavily on the sale/discount message. It has been a tried and true message—especially in ecommerce—but will is last? For some ecommerce and businesses, it will continue to serve them well, mostly if that has been their go-to strategy and the discounts are already built into their P/L.

However, when you start to discount consistently and heavily over and over again and your business isn’t used to such drastic measures, it is incredibly difficult to get back to the real value of your product in the long-term.

So where does that leave you and your pricing model with discounts?

Do
- Look at value of product selling, what cost of goods and competitive set look like? Yes, run a P/L. Basic task that must be done.
- Review how long you can keep inventory. Can you sell some of this year’s new release while also keeping some inventory for next year? Some larger businesses may not have the space. Smaller businesses might be able to run a ‘limited edition’ or special promotion, and keep some inventory for a later season when paychecks rebound.

Coronavirus Puts Frankie Morello on Hold

Don’t
- Undercut your prices because of a competitor. While marketers are often active in the ‘price’ part of the 5 Marketing Ps (Product, Price, Promotion, Place, and People), remember bringing in a new customer solely based on a lower price point doesn’t mean you have a new brand loyalist. They might even become frustrated when you try to rebound your prices.
- Reduce your product’s quality. Sure, you might not be able to serve your weekly wine tasting at your bottle shop due to social distancing and other regulations. However, you can think about how you can empower your customers to stay connected with you be giving them a quality experience in other ways. Now more than ever, people want that comfort of normalcy, even if it’s in a not-so-normal way like a box they can order with information on how to have their own wine tasting, or a 1:1 zoom call with you to walk through the wines for 15 minutes. Everyone stays safe, and you continue your connection with your customers.

Pivot to needs of market

While consumer goods are still in demand, the demand for the type of products has shifted. We are seeing more consumables like wine/beer/alcohol, toilet paper are seeing incredible surges in sales, while higher end products like purses, and clothing are seeing a drastic drop resulting in a market shift.

We are seeing consumers flock to “staples”—paper products and food—and “affordable luxuries”—wine, coffee, in-home entertainment from on-demand shows to puzzles. These two main areas give consumers a sense of control as well as the opportunity to give themselves permission to enjoy their money and life in smaller, perceived micro doses of spending.

What does this mean for you? You have to pivot your products and services based on the consumer market.

Action to take: Identify your key audiences and what products they would identify as ‘staples’ and what would be their ‘affordable luxuries’.

From there, pivot your product offerings positioning to these two areas. This gives consumers permission to purchase.

Example: Say you manufacture luxury soap and shampoo products in small batches. The price might be higher than a $1 store bar of dial. So you position your soap as not only a necessity, but also an ‘affordable luxury’. Your customers still need soap products (especially during a pandemic) but why don’t they enjoy the lavender scent that will also help relax during this stressful time?

3. It’s not all about brand right now, it’s about service, availability

While people are loyal to certain brands, I don’t know many people that wouldn’t grab the available brand of toilet paper if that what was available in the store. This also goes for many consumable goods like soap, wine, ~~coffee~~ ok, I draw the line here, and even clothes (my child as grown through two different sizes in two months. You bet he is wearing whatever we can find at the store or online).

People will be venturing to the stores for their regular products—or staples— but with so many people still adhering to a version of a stay home order, they will also be looking for ways to stay home and still enjoy live—which goes back to affordable luxuries.

If you are able to offer a service that makes your product even more available than before, maybe through delivery or online ordering in areas or ways you haven’t before, than you should see people taking advantage of that.

Example: You could offer kids shoes, and instead of in-store shopping where trying on shoes is part of the shopping process, maybe you mail two sizes with a deposit from the customer instead. Then you pick up the shoes that don’t fit and charge the customer for what works. Now, you can sanitize the shoe that you bring back, and you sold a pair to a parent that desperately needs shoes and was having to let their child wear their parent’s old shoes with tape … seriously, where can I get this service?

With that, you have offered a service while increasing the availability of goods that are needed at this time.

What are you seeing in the marketplace that has transitioned marketing overnight because of COVID19?

My TV ignorance and what I’m going to do.

Before I graduated college, moved back to the lower 48 from the great white north, married, and had a child, I didn’t watch much television. Many conversations at work, school, and later in church, would go over my head since they would be discussing the latest show developments.

My personality type radiates toward more biographies, historical, and sometimes, if I really wanted to live on the edge, historical fiction. As a result, I did often miss out on bonding moments when television was discussed. However, thanks to Hulu, Netflix, and other online streaming services, I am able to see why Grey’s, Pacey, and Olivia Pope are so important to people.

First came the stream, then came the binge.

When I was on maternity leave with my son 3.5 years ago, and was nursing every two hours, I started getting stir crazy. Did I say I was in Minnesota at the time? Yes, nothing like a Minnesota winter while on maternity to feel cabin fever. When late night feedings happen, sometimes you have to stop sitting in the dark at 1:30am. You wonder how the world is going on around you, however, reading the newspaper becomes frightening, at least it was for me. I had a small life in the world that I was suddenly incredibly responsible for. I couldn’t handle thinking about another recession, the Middle East, and famines while only getting 2 hours of sleep at a time and eating only ‘quiet’ food that could be consumed while nursing (nothing hot, crunchy, drippy, snoozy, doopey… I digress)

After my reading options were exhausted, I would reach for the computer, specifcally Netflix. At the time Grey’s Anatomy was featured, so I pressed play. Previously, a colleague had called me April Kepner. Now, I get the joke.

My sorority sisters would talk about McDreamy and something recalled ‘er’ from years prior. Whenever I was invited to an ‘Oscars Night’, I was pretty ignorant as to what was happening. It’s really confusing to a former TV outsider why people would get so invested in fictitious characters. Now? I get it.

It’s not just about the story, but the shared stories.

About how you see yourself in others.
About how stories ripped from the headlines are presented for an audience (sometimes for better or for worse).
About how special it is when you see how dreams can come true.
About hope.
About sadness.

People are all about stories, and sharing them is critical to our social and societal survival. That maternity leave left me thinking about not only my story, but the stories I would tell my son about the things he would never see. Like how his great-great-grandmother would keep Cokes and chocolate chip cookies in her kitchen for our visits while we played with her antique Lincoln Logs. Or how while living in Alaska, I was able to go snowshoeing all winter just by walking a few blocks out of Nome. Or How I couldn’t really read until I was 8, and at three he can read 3 words already. Or where I was when 9/11 happened.

Thanks to the Internet, I can now catch up on stories, for better or worse, for laughs or tears, for fun or torture.

Since in recent years I have realized and accepted television ignorance, I am making a resolution.

My TV resolution: watch all of an infamous NBC show called Parks and Recreation.

With who: husband (big fan) and a work colleague (big fan)
When: at least an episode a week
Why: because I love Amy Poehler, and have already read her biography (proof from the statement in paragraph two)
How: Netflix!

I recognize that I could enhance my mind by learning a new language, reading a new book, or doing something for the home during that time versus watching television, but really, this is for me. I now know that I need some ridiculous entertainment to loosen up and recognize when I am just plain overly stressed. I need to take a break.

I couldn’t do this completely without the internet.

Retailer Price Management: Leaving Customers Behind?

Recently, there was an article from the AP in the Ashville Citizen-Times that stopped me in my tracks. It was a retail focused piece that described how e-commerce sites have been working on and implementing price monitoring systems for the past few years. This isn’t anything new, considering that retail has secret shoppers (humans) that search out competitors, visit stores, and report on prices, displays, selection, and more. Now, they are going into hyper-speed online. How? By using systems that will change prices online based on a competitors online price, current inventory, and the company’s bottom line.

Some people have said ‘What’s the big deal, Kristina? Isn’t that what businesses have been doing for as long as retail can remember?’ To that, I say ‘Of course’. However, last time I checked my Aunt didn’t search and purchase at stock exchange speed. Ok, maybe the sites aren’t that fast, but they are getting closer.

The pricing systems, according to this article, for many large corporations, like Amazon and Wal-Mart, now have the pricing structure so they are able to change prices in minutes. For customers, that means that you can check a price, comeback an hour later, and it’s changed. From a business perspective, to change prices based on the market, bottom line, and several other factors, that can seem like a dream come true. But I have to ask, what about customers? I believe that some companies do factor in the customer’s need for consistent, yet competitve pricing. But from a customer’s perspective, competitive means lowering prices, not yo-yo-ing them up and down.

The airline industry has been doing this for ages. We are used to price fluctuation now for airlines and think we have it figured it all out. However, we all know that it’s still a gamble with those airline tickets to go see Grandma for her birthday or mom and dad for Christmas break from college.

When it comes to retail, customers like to do their homework, but will that even be possible to do that with a minute-by-minute price changes?

Perhaps, with tools that compare online retail pricing. They aren’t as well known as their airfare counterparts like Kayak and Expedia for example, but they are out there.

Enter Pricegrabber.

Pricegrabber.com compares prices for retail products from toys to TVs. This is wonderful when you consider all of the purchase options that are out there and how exhausting it can be to surf all the major retailers for the Christmas toys, for example— not that I have a 2 year-old to shop for.

One thing I noticed while being on Pricegrabber, was that there is definitely a time delay on price changes. I looked for a big ticket toy (a play kitchen) and Pricegrabber said it was $129.99 at Target, but when I searched on Target.com, I saw it was $125.99.

Now, that’s not a huge difference, and in about 1.5 hours, Pricegrabber was updated, but I’m not sure how often these competitors websites are crawled and updated.

I am hoping that retail doesn’t 100% go the way of airfare online. It’s one thing to be competitive, but it is another to constantly change prices so often that by the time you get your credit card out of your wallet to make a purchase, the price has gone up.

Finally, me purchasing a $50 is NOT the same as making a$1,230 investment in a first-class plane ticket. If we don’t have consistency in pricing, I think we could easily see more skeptical customers that already doubt pricing anywhere they go. Big box stores say there is room for no negotiation on prices, but with these online systems changing by the hour (or minute), customers will be calling BS very soon.

Oh, and don’t even get me started on how this could RUIN brand loyalty.

Update: No more smart phone

You know those people that say once you go ‘smart you can’t go back’? Well, they would be correct.

This. Is. Aweful.

Some would say that I need to be more ‘in the moment’, versus addressing the nagging feeling of wanting to narcissistically tweet out my thoughts, prayers, food, or check-ins.

I thought everyone wanted to be ‘in the moment’ with me. Is that not the case? Do people want to address their daily lives without reading about my son’s first trip to the Thai Food restaurant?

I have had a ‘dumb’ phone for about a month now and I can’t stand it. Yes, sometimes I find it glorious that I can leave work and really leave without the nagging feeling like I need to check my email. But now, that anxiety builds for HOURS until I am able to check my email and make sure that nothing is wrong (even though I know that nothing is blowing up).

I know this anxiety doesn’t have to do completely with not having a smart phone anymore, but I can’t help but get the feeling that this is the world we live in now. Do I need this connection? Is this the only way people are communicating now? I know people still communication face to face and so on, but the percentage of my day/week is very limited. How can I change that?

I can see how smartphones and technology are rewiring our brains. Am I acclimating? Yes. Do I like it? NO.

Will I stay smart-phone free forever? Probably not. But for now, this millenial mom is enjoying the extra $170/month.

How are you engaging with the world around you sans technology?

Is email killing you? (It’s crushing me)

I have been wondering lately where my productivity has gone. I started a brand new (awesome) job that I am loving that’s really pushing me to greater heights (it helps that my coworkers and bosses are fan freakin’ tastic). However, sometimes I look down and it’s been 2 hours since I started a project. I need and want to be productive, so I decided that this has to stop.

Last week, I took an inventory of my time, and I realized that I spent WAY too much time just ‘cleaning’ and organizing my inbox.

Everyone has been there with email. You’ve been working on ‘cleaning’ and ‘organizing’ your email to ‘put out fires’ and someone calls to see if you received their novel of an email. Regardless who it’s from, your boss, co-worker, or vendor looking to up-sell it seems that email has become a life preserver as if to say ‘I held up my end, the ball is your court’.. and I’m done.

Conversations go something like this:

Them: I emailed you that proposal 203 hours and 23 minutes ago with 7 attachments and my edits to your proposal. Have you not read it yet?

Me: Not yet. I’m overloaded from the holidays.

Them: Ha! I know what you mean. I check mine all the time and still can’t seem to keep up.

—

Wait. WHAT?

So not only are we ‘using’ email as a file cabinet (are those even made anymore?) to make sure that we have a record of the conversation, but we’re never leaving work because we have to constantly keep our ‘desk’ clean by checking and cleaning our email. Don’t even get me started on voice-mail.

So all this begs me to ask: Why am I doing this to myself?

Answers (justifications?):

Because I manage several vendors and it’d be a nightmare otherwise? Vendor management. Oy vey.

Because workplace culture dictates? Maybe.

Because that is the only option right now? Not good enough and not hardly.

There are SEVERAL options out there for project correspondence and collaboration. Think 37signals. But what about day-to-day communication?

My background is in communications and email, in my opinion, IS NOT great tool for proper conversation. Honestly, it’s one-way. Forget about collaboration, it’s not good with that. Maybe if you are having correspondence with one person over time, but then, let’s call that what it is, a freakin’ letter.

Companies like Hootsuite are making a day-to-day conversation tool for communications within organizations, but I can see the comments so clearly…

‘I can’t follow the thread all the time!’

‘Ugh. Not another network to maintain.’

‘I’m not on Facebook,’

You see where I am going with this. While email is crushing me (and everyone’s productivity) I’m also weary on a taking the social network approach. However, I think we MUST re-imagine what communication looks like, and like everything, communication, like culture, is unique to a company.

What does communication look like for me and my company?

Will I stop using email? Not right now, but I will improve my time management with it so I am able to really be productive.

How are you communicating in your office? Do you use a social type network? Do you love or loathe email?