The quiet and the striving - Part 3

First, we also need to go a little further in this respect: The Covid-19 pandemic started as an epidemic in China and led to a lockdown in January 2020; it is also known that China is a strong economic partner for Europe and that many industries depend on Chinese suppliers... Especially the automobile industry... We did not receive a newsletter from any of the car companies we subscribed to between 1 March and 24 March. This caused us to become suspicious and to deduce one or the other assumption: 

• Probably the automobile industry was one of the first to feel the effects of Covid-19, due to the outbreak in China.
• Presumably the automotive industry was able to deduce that this virus would spread relatively quickly from an epidemic to a pandemic.
• Presumably the automotive industry knew before many others what the economic consequences of this crisis would be.

These are only guesses on our part, but they do lead to an essential question: Why is consumer contact completely broken off? 

We do not have an answer to this question. Because no matter what the campaign planning for the year looked like, it must remain flexible and the contact to the customer must not break off completely!

For this group we have selected two concise examples: Kärcher and Saturn. Saturn is representative of several consumer electronics centers that all pursued the same more or less failed strategy.

Let's start with Kärcher: the company sends out newsletters at irregular intervals, sometimes not a single one for several weeks. From 1 March to 19 March we don't hear anything from them; in the period before that we receive a newsletter. But then on the 19th here:

Suddenly the era of Kärcher seems to have arrived.  The newsletter serves only as a topic special on the coronavirus and gives tips and recommendations for proper hand washing. A CTA takes you to the landing page with detailed content and cross-selling teasers, which offer all "disinfecting", "germ-free" and "hygienic" products and their results from the Kärcher company.

Saturn, on the other hand, sends out regular offer newsletters, much like the food retailers, but was one of the first to recognize on March 14 (as a reminder: on March 13, the management's instruction came that we had to move to the home office) that consumer needs are likely to change and sends out the following newsletter:

Unfortunately, only the intro has been adapted for this newsletter, because the offers for TVs, refrigerators, mobile phones and laptops now do not necessarily correspond to the expected gadgets that you might need to set up a home office.

We called these companies the troubled ones because they assessed the situation correctly and also adapted the envelope content of their newsletters accordingly, but in the end did not take the chance to profit from the changed living conditions of their customers. Instead, the following communications again correspond to the standard mailing behaviour of the companies.

Adapt the content of your newsletter to the situation and take advantage of the opportunities that the Corona crisis brings for your company. Stay present and encourage your customers to subscribe to your newsletter on a regular basis.

In the next and last post of this blog series we will introduce you to the communication losers of this pandemic. Until then...

… Stay tuned! Stay safe!

Your Caro