March 18, 2020

I have heard many marketers wondering how to handle marketing during the coronavirus pandemic, or weather or not they should run ads at all. I do think there are a lot of things to consider or changes you may want to make in light of this.

I don’t think that it is necessarily a good idea to stop altogether unless your business is something that is directly related to the crisis. Perhaps reconsidering your ads in light of what is going on or even running ads updating your customers on changes in how you are doing business can be a good way to keep you in the minds of your customers while at the same time showing understanding for their concerns.

Things you may want to keep in mind;

• You might not want to focus completely on the crisis but acknowledge it in some way.
• You may want to watch your performance closely and monitor reactions.
• Avoid looking like you are insensitive to or trying to profit from the situation.
• consider trying to be positive about the crisis instead of adding to the fear.
• try to help your audience to understand how best to connect with your business under the circumstances.
• Consider what your audience may think about your product in light of the current situation.

On the more technical side of things, you should keep in mind that things may change rapidly with the different platforms and with Google during this time and you may have to change things around to keep up. Here are some things to consider with this.

• You may want to set up an automated reporting dashboard in order to review traffic and spending at a glance.
• Pay close attention to your ad-spend, Facebook ads prices have dropped currently but they may fluctuate during the crisis.
• Add “coronavirus,” “virus” and “Covid-19” as phrase-match negatives to your accounts. Google is blocking ads relating to caronavirus, so the negative keywords shouldn’t be necessary but are a safeguard nonetheless.
• You may want to consider applying negative bid modifiers to heavily affected geographies, depending on your businesses product or service availability.

People may change their buying habits during the crisis so depending on the type of business you have there are different options you can offer your customers. You may want to consider for instance if you are running a fitness gym or other business that people may not choose to go to in person to offer an online alternative class or if you have a restaurant to offer an option for a delivery service. You may just have to be a bit clever and come up with something that helps showcase your product and offer a message of hope at the same time.