Penetrace Blog

Three small steps that can provide significant benefits in times of crisis

Written by Penetrace | 20-Apr-2020 10:31:11

Three small steps that can provide significant benefits in times of crisis

Fortunately, there comes a time when most of us will be able to enjoy our everyday life, almost like the one we left when the world shut down as a result of the pandemic. For businesses however, it will take longer for the situation to normalize again. 

But what if it does not get back to normal? What if the shutdown forced new experiences and new buying habits for customers, which in turn led to longer lasting changes in their consumer patterns? And how can we possible identify these changes early so that the right marketing efforts can be planned and implemented as soon as possible?

Brand monitoring and tracking gives you answers

In most cases, those who monitor or track their brands will be able to answer these types of questions. Brand Tracker is ongoing surveys that map the consumer’s perception of their own and competitors’ brands over time. By following changes in awareness, knowledge (strategy), choice and preference, you will have full insight into the changes that are happening in the market, who is strengthening and weakening their positions and why. With crisis also comes opportunity. Now is the time to make sure your brand tracker really meets your needs. Evaluate the consequences of the crises, and get your marketing work off to a flying start again.

We have listed three small steps that can be of great use in this challenging time we are facing right now.

Step 1: Increase the number of interviews so you can follow changes on a weekly basis

In times of crisis, markets change from week to week. To ensure that the tracker captures changes on a weekly basis, we recommend that our clients increase the number of interviews for a period of time.

There will also be a greater need to follow developments in specific subgroups or segments, such as purchase plans for families with children by region. To be able to dive into these subgroups or segments, you will need a more extensive selection of respondents.
 

Step 2: Ask questions relevant to the crisis

We believe that consumers will, to a greater extent, prefer suppliers who show corporate responsibility and handle the crisis well, which again will affect purchase choices. How is your brand handling it? We suggest adding a question to the tracker to reveal this or other questions that may be relevant to ask as a result of the crisis.

Step 3: Turn the negative into something positive

The Corona crises started in China. The Asians are known for being great at exploiting a negative trend to something positive for the community and their own business. We can even see it in martial arts where much of the self-defense technique is about utilizing the opponent’s energy to their own advantage. We believe that this approach applies here as well.

Make sure you take full advantage of your market tracker. It might be the right time to make some adjustments to existing questions, or to add new ones to ensure you get the most relevant insight. Maybe you need a more in-depth analysis of your tracker data?

Contact us to prepare you brand for the new “normal” we all know is coming.