How to Adapt Your Content Marketing Tactics Amid Uncertainty

When news headlines disrupt your content marketing strategy, staying relevant and sensitive to your audience is a top priority. How should a business change its approach during unexpected uncertainty? Based on our expertise, we suggest that digital marketers take a close look at their content strategy and operations before publishing anything else. 

Content Strategy

Your audience still has an appetite for your content, but you may need to put some on the back-burner and be willing to shift your content strategy to be more relevant. Though current events may elongate the consumer journey, times like these call for adaptability. As you start to examine your content strategy, ask three questions: 

How does the news affect my target audiences? 

Unexpected bad news may not hurt the brand, but it may affect your audience. Be ready to change your messaging to be sensitive, but still informative. Tone matters more than ever. 

How is my target audience reacting? 

Watch how your competitors are responding to the news. It’s a great time to be implementing competitive listening strategies to see how consumers respond to their tactics. Learn from them. 

Is my publishing schedule still optimized?  

When people are affected by the news, understand that their content priorities may change. Be smart about what you can prioritize, and swap spots in your content calendar where appropriate. Do a simple sanity check — be willing to delay or archive ideas that seem inappropriate to publish at this time. 

Content Development 

As people around the globe are implementing social distancing best practices during the COVID-19 pandemic, they are looking online to fulfill their same wants and needs without leaving their homes. Now is the time to be the most empathetic with your audience and modify your content calendar and messaging.  

Build sensitive messaging into your content distribution strategy 

Now is a great time to be a thought leader. Depending on the nature of your business, your audience is likely looking for answers and practical advice. For example, what’s the most effective way to communicate how your business or industry is affected by COVID-19? What type of visual content is appropriate in such turbulent times? 

Don’t sensationalize. Position your brand as resourceful, informative, and professional.  

People value useful, sensitively written content. Your loyal followers care about your perspective and will become your best advocates. Leverage email to provide your POVs to your owned audience and make sure a version of it exists in a shareable form, like a whitepaper or blog post. 

Experiment with webcasts and podcasts 

Leverage webcasts and podcasts. They are an effective way of making offline content available virtually.  When done right, it’ll be a great way to attract leads and make good use of existing assets, like presentation materials or case studies. 

For more insight, read our post, “4 Ways to Do a Webcast Right.” 

Refresh evergreen content — especially resources and guides 

When your audience is affected by what’s happening in the news, they’re looking for headline topics. Your content may go unnoticed because their priorities have shifted.  

Get to know your archived content. Past press releases, blog posts, whitepapers, and even emails may be useful to refresh at this time. See if anything could be useful in this scenario. You may be surprised at how relevant your evergreen content remains if you take the time to revise it. 

Contact Investis Digital 

For more insight into managing your digital presence amid a crisis, contact Investis Digital.