 and discuss how your brand, your small business, should approach this coronavirus crisis. Welcome to the We Are Slam Show where we share marketing agency insights, best practices and ideas to help your business grow. My name is Tyler Kelly and I am the co-founder and chief strategist here at Slam Agency, a digital first full-service marketing agency with strong in-house creative. And today we're going to take a step back from the typical marketing agency, marketing director education and discuss how your brand, your small business, should approach this coronavirus crisis. Now our show has always been first and foremost for marketing directors. And I know as a marketing director, as a VP of marketing, you're facing some pretty extraordinary challenges right now. And so in this show, I want to share with you what to do, what not to do, what to look for, what to be aware of in this moment of crisis, hoping that this is something that is just going to temporarily suspend the way that you might be doing business or allow you to think about new ways to drive revenue, new ways to help your community. And if that's the case, then this is going to end up being beneficial for your business. But what I don't want you to do is make short-term decisions that are going to have long-term consequences on your bottom line. And so what this show today is about is about how to respond, not react. A reaction is something that happens like without any forethought, but how to respond, how to take a moment and think through your next move as a marketing director, as a small business owner, as a founder of a company experiencing these challenges right now. What's your next move? So the first thing that we have to remember is that this affects all of us. It's affecting real people. I was at a restaurant today, I ordered takeout. I went in and this place is normally packed, normally lines out the door. And I could just see the pain and anguish on the workers' faces knowing that I was about maybe one of five people in there picking up takeout. Never before have they been faced with a situation like this. And the fact is if this lasts any much longer, restaurants like theirs are kind of a very difficult time bouncing back. The first thing I want you to remember is this is affecting people just like you and just like me. What that means is we have to be conscious. We have to be intentional with the way that we communicate. You can go to school and study crisis communications and all this, but at the end of the day, just remember that these are real people. Your customers are real people. Your vendors are real people. Everyone in some way is affected by what's going on right now. And because of that, we need to provide and we need to extend empathy. And what that means is just giving that person, giving that vendor, giving that customer the benefit of the doubt and speaking to them as a human being. If you can do this, this is the first step in, let's just call it crisis communications, but knowing that the person on the other side of that lens, the person that I'm talking to right now is a real human being with real fears and real challenges and real struggles and a real desire and aspiration to get through this mess and that they need to know, you need to know that you will get through this. So that's step number one. So step number two as a marketing director is to not be tone deaf. Now we hear this a lot and a lot of times we've seen some really bad examples of brands being tone deaf just over the last year or so. But essentially right now, what I want you to do is I want you to take a look at all of your existing advertising social media. A lot of times in order to get ahead of the game, what we might do as a marketing director is we might schedule social media in advance. I saw several on St. Patrick's Day, saw several Happy St. Patrick's Day quotes going out and although it was St. Patrick's Day and it's a joyous day on many levels, rather than just saying Happy St. Patrick's Day, maybe you address the situation that we're in and provide a positive spin on that situation, but don't just ignore it. Don't just post what you're posting, not being conscious of what people are feeling. And so what I want you to do is I want you to take a look at your social media feeds. Take a look at what you have scheduled out in the future. Take a look at anything that's going to be popping up on social media over the next few weeks and just ask yourself, is this something that is going to hurt my brand credibility? Is it something that's going to be neutral or is it something that is going to help people in their time of need? I would suggest that you begin to take a look at your social media and begin to create content, create advertisements that actually lift up people in their time of need, provide resources and services and solutions for them as they're struggling to figure out how to take that next step. The number three thing I want you to think about is not turning off all of your advertising. I mean, part of the reason why we're in this predicament and will be for a while, and you know, dare I say it, the R word recession, I mean, I think it's official, like we have entered into a recession. And the worst thing that you can do during this time is to pause or to turn off your advertising. Now, I already mentioned that what you should do is you should take a look at your advertising and make sure that you don't have stuff that's out there automated that is tone deaf that is going to present your brand in a way that you don't want to be presented in this moment because it's not appropriate. However, what you don't want to do is turn off your advertising because for many right now is the time to accelerate. Let me put it to you this way. So many of us are in this state of I don't know what to do next. The people that are going to get through break through that are going to accelerate that are going to jump to that next level and surpass and survive. Those are the people that are right now thinking about how can I double down and take this as an opportunity not a disadvantage? You know, I've seen restaurants over the last week or so. I've seen some restaurants innovate completely changed their entire way of doing business. And they're the first ones out there. They're the innovators. And then I've seen other restaurants and they just they don't know how to respond. And so if this lasts too long, which ones are going to be around when this is all said and done? It's the ones that are taking action now. So if you turn off and pause your advertising, you might be making a short term decision, a short term, like we're going to save some money here or there, it's going to have long term ramifications, those types of ramifications that in this particular instance may very well threaten the livelihood of your business, the sustainability of your business. So take a step back, breathe, think about this intentionally, consciously think about your next move. You don't want to pause everything. Think about how can I turn this situation around for my good for my community is good for my employees good for my customers good. How can I change the way and optimize the way that I'm doing business and then advertise that fact? It's just like the stock market. The best time to buy stocks is right now when the stocks are down, when the prices are low, there are thousands of people I saw a meme that said, you know, it's the rich people that are buying the stocks right now. And that's exactly that's exactly the case. The poor people are the ones stocking up on TP on toilet paper. It's the same way with advertising, the poor mentality, the scarcity mindset draws into itself and hordes, okay, and turns off the advertising, the abundant mentality, the people that have been through this before the brands that are strong today were made in moments like this and I guarantee you they didn't shut down and they didn't turn off everything that they're doing in the outside world. They became a little bit more empathetic and they put their money in the places that brought increase to their customers, to their vendors, to their communities and that's how they survived and that's how they thrived. The final thing I want you to know is that in this day and age in our digital economy, this is no time to just shut down in terms of communications. A lot of old school PR veterans might say you know this is the time to take a step back and see what happens, see how everything plays out before you make a statement, before you you know jump on the bandwagon one way or another and that may have very well been a smart move pre-digital world but today you have to think about the speed of digital. Everything is happening so fast you can't sit on the sidelines. It won't serve you well so I disagree with any PR person that is going to tell you to sit on the sidelines and let this thing play out. You're a human, be human, communicate the way that humans communicate, share your heart, be empathetic and look for ways to optimize your business. I mean you're not shutting down, you're not throwing in the towel, you can do this, we're going to get through this and because of that communicate, communicate here and now, share from your heart. You know I live by this philosophy that anytime I think that I need to say something, if I feel that in my gut whether it's in written communications or right here talking to you, I'm just going to go ahead and share that with you and the reason why is because I know that in some magical way the universe has brought you to me and me to you in this moment and whatever it is I'm saying, whatever it is I'm sharing is something that you need to hear, you're ready to hear, you're open to hearing and that's why you've tuned in. There are no accidents, everything happens for a reason and with that approach you have permission to communicate to like I said be human, be real, be timely and please don't sit on the sidelines. So in summary my big tips for dealing right now as a small business, as a marketing director, as a founder of a small company, of a startup, my four tips for surviving and thriving and just really what to do right now in this very moment as we're presented with a pandemic with a situation that none of us have faced before in our lifetimes. Number one, we should remember that this affects all of us to be empathetic. Number two, take a look at what we have scheduled out there, make sure that it's not tone deaf. These things get out there and it's not on purpose. People aren't tone deaf on purpose but they are preoccupied with other things. So I'm giving you permission, take a step back and take a look at what you have scheduled to make sure that that doesn't happen to you. Number three, don't pull back all your marketing and advertising. This is a mistake. Just like you buy stocks when the prices are down, you buy advertising when the economy is down. This is how you get ahead in business. And number four, don't retreat. Don't just be silent. As a brand, you have a voice. Use it and use it at the speed of digital. Speak what's on your heart and I guarantee you everything is going to work out. Everything's going to be okay and I will see on the other side. In fact, I'll see you next week. We're going to share more tips for marketing in a recession, for marketing in times like this. If you've enjoyed this show, do me a favor, let me know in the comments. Be sure to share this with a friend who might be going through a difficult time right now. Let's get the word out. Let's support one another during this time and thank you for tuning in. Subscribe, rate, review. I will see you next week. Thanks for watching. If you like what you just watched, subscribe, then hit that bell. You'll be the first to be notified when new content goes live. After that, you can watch more videos from SLAM agency. We've picked something we think you'll love.