Email Marketing- Helping Brands Thrive In Crisis

Kamal Joshi Jan 22, 2021

We live in an unprecedented yet interesting time that continues to reshape many aspects of work and life. During the pandemic and its aftermath, customer behaviour has changed significantly. Safety and convenience have become the top of the mind concerns for consumers, and they also expect brands to deliver a relevant and personalized experience. Marketers have had to adapt and re-strategize their approach to customer acquisition and engagement.

One of the critical touchpoints that marketers re-discovered for personalized communication during this phase has been email. According to this report, as consumers continued to spend more time online, email usage and engagement significantly increased. Email became the most personal and vital communication channel between brands and their customers in a contactless world. Email played a vital role in the initial Response; it continues to be a significant touchpoint during Recovery and will play a big role in collective emotional and economic Rebuilding.

Response

During the early days of the pandemic, both brands and consumers felt a lot of uncertainty, panic, and anxiety. Brands had to turn to their most cost-effective and dependable communication channel to provide facts, comfort, support, and be empathetic with their customers. Brands that followed this strategy saw a significant jump in engagement during the early phase of the pandemic.

Some brands took up the uncertainty as an opportunity to stay connected with consumers who responded favourably to initiatives undertaken in retail, hospitality, and automobile sectors. For example, McDonald's emphasized the safe delivery of their food at the convenience of their customer's home. Preferred Hotels and Resorts struck a chord with subscribers by emailing a survey asking them about their future travel aspirations. This offered an opportunity to establish a dialogue and connect with customers in a fresh way and helped collect some insights that they will use to make future communications more relevant.

Recovery

The uncertainties for both consumers and marketers have reduced from a few months ago, and collectively, the world is moving towards a recovery phase. Brands need to continue keeping relationships strong and reassuring customers while also equipping their teams to get back to business. Brands need to invest appropriately to rapidly ramp-up in the post-crisis period—and come out more competitive. Here's what marketers could be doing:

Build email programs that are agile and efficient to continue responding to unplanned activities and ongoing updates

Continue with supportive messaging and details about how the brand is providing hardship assistance

Invest in infrastructure and capabilities—especially personalization

Close gaps in the lifecycle and relationship-management efforts

Sephora used email channel heavily to weather the storm. With Sephora stores closed, the beauty brand adapted to their circumstances by focussing email content on self-care, wellness, and remote socialization. They also highlighted how easy it is to shop from their homes' comfort and included new promotions into their email marketing.

A large sports brand in the US continued to send consistent and highly relevant updates to its customers. The brand also used this time to shore up targeting and segmentation capabilities and became laser focussed on engagement and campaign performance.

Rebuilding

As the world finds equilibrium and consumers settle into a new normal – brands need to double down on efforts not just to survive but thrive and be prepared for future disruptions—a revitalization after a dark time. Brands need to integrate email into the larger omni-channel engagement strategy. Brands and marketers need to address evolving customers' needs in a prompt, consistent, and personal way by investing in the following areas:

Focus on unifying disparate channels

Map the new customer journey

Establish clear KPIs and goals and systems to measure accurately

Use data to gain insights to deliver value

Thriving with email marketing

A global pandemic crisis helped us realize the importance of technology and going digital, including email, which is unarguably the most personal and vital channel for digital communication. The value of email marketing became better understood across the organization. As we look ahead, brands that want to succeed will have to continue building highly personalized email programs that seamlessly integrate with their marketing strategies. This approach will not only ensure success but also prepare them for an uncertain future.