Post-pandemic marketing and why over-saturation of content is bad
You may have noticed that I haven’t blogged since December 2019.
Firstly, for someone who blogs for other people and makes money from it, that’s piss poor.
Consistency with your blogging is a massive SEO factor, not to mention the impact not writing can have on growing a loyal following.
I’d love to use Covid-19 as an excuse, so I’m going to. In part anyway…
Age is just a virus spreader
A week or so after that last blog I turned 40 and my missus, such is her way, organised a bit of a surprise birthday bash for me with friends and family at a local watering hole.
As this was just before Christmas and, we now suspect, Covid-19 was circulating in the UK far earlier than originally thought, this potentially turned into a bit of a super spreader event. Soz, Bozza.
At the time, I’d put the fact that around 20 people sacked it off due to ‘illness’ down to them thinking I’m a bit of an arsehole, but now…
Anyway, by January, it’s fair to say the world was going south at pace and by the middle of April my comfortable life thanks to a bunch of retained clients had become somewhat more uncomfortable when they went all ‘women and children first’ off the good ship Curious Frog.
What followed was six weeks of crying and mowing my next-door neighbour’s lawn to fill the time and take my mind off the fact I had no income and fell through the gaps in Rishi’s support scheme.
Change, change and more change
Luckily for me, those retained clients returned in June and since then, I’ve been able to rebuild my little business to pretty much where it was before the word ‘coronavirus’ became a thing.
But despite that return to effective normality of income, it’s fair to say a lot has changed for my clients and the way they market their products and services.
- Events have become online Zoom-fests.
- Budgets have been piled into PPC and SEO (good for me) to take advantage of increased use of t’internet
- Messaging across all comms is softer and more considered, although this is now changing to fall in line with the growing hope that we might be out of this shit storm at some point in the next few months.
Most importantly, though, my clients are preparing for how the world might look at the back end of 2021 and beyond.
Of course, trying to predict the future after the 12 months we’ve just endured would be about as sensible as an interview with Oprah right now.
But putting plans in place to adapt quickly when, hopefully, we start to return to the ‘old normal’ at some point, is a critical step for any business and their marketing strategy.
And mark my words, the ‘old’ normal is what all your customers are crying out for.
That includes the digital ‘old normal’
Humans are creatures of habit and, for me at least, the ‘new normal’ is just something that all those annoying people who don’t feel complete without some kind of tagline can hang off. It won’t last forever.
I read a piece on the Forbes website about Covid’s lasting impact on marketing and I’m sorry, but I just don’t see it.
‘Screen time all the time’? Have a day off, John.
Everything has a tipping point and I firmly believe that the increased use of devices will be one of the first things to go once restrictions are lifted.
Of course, those who were late to the party and who have only just discovered the convenience of online retail will more than likely remain in that bubble long term.
But for the rest of us, it hasn’t been a novelty since 1995 – it was a necessity during a shitty time.
Humans miss what they can’t have. Like shops, pubs, restaurants and hugs.
And they quickly bin off what’s thrust upon them through ‘rules’. Like Zoom, hand sanitiser, masks, social distancing and the constant sight of security guards on the door at Waitrose.
Too much of anything is never a good thing and I genuinely believe we’re on the cusp of change when it comes to social media use and screen time in general.
The incessant negativity, racism, homophobia and political hijacking of channels like Twitter will help drive that change in behaviour, as will the traditional media’s 24/7 ‘bad news’ agenda.
But that’s another blog for another day.
What it means for your marketing
So, what does all this gubbins mean then?
Well, far from Covid-19 sparking permanent change in favour of increased digital use, I honestly believe brands will need to direct their thinking towards how, when and how often they choose to communicate with their audiences rather than piling all their focus into the creative itself.
When you’ve been locked in your house for months on end, being targeted by a Facebook ad from a brand whose website you landed on purely because you have fat fingers can start to grate.
Reading the same old nonsense from ‘gurus’ like Bridgette Hyacinth on LinkedIn can grate.
Being invited to yet another Zoom webinar on the future of marketing after Covid, following a day of Zoom calls with people you don’t like, can grate.
And seeing the same old orange, freaky botox faces backing products they don’t really believe in on Instagram really grates.
If Covid-19 teaches us one thing as marketers it will be that timing will be everything and over-saturation of content will have the potential to kill brands stone dead.
That’s two things, but you get the point.
And the point is this: In the post Covid world, less will definitely be more.
