Como o profissional de marketing deveria se posicionar diante do COVID-19

Pyr Marcondes
18 de março de 2020 - 7h38

Esta semana meu primeiro post foi sobre como eu acreditava – e acredito – que as marcas estão lavando as mãos para o COVID-19 e se eximindo de qualquer comprometimento com o tema, como se não vivessem na sociedade afetada pelo mal, para a qual vendem seus produtos e serviços, e da qual sobrevivem.

Coronavírus? Salvo raríssimas e louváveis exceções, não é com elas.

Se tiver curiosidade, leia aqui.

Publico abaixo texto sensível e inspirador da Ann Handley, autora de best-sellers do Wall Street Journal e consultora, que tem como foco orientar as empresas a como escapar da mediocridade no marketing para gerar resultados tangíveis.

Ela é também diretora de conteúdo da MarketingProfs, de onde retirei este texto.

Ann é adepta e tem livro em fase de produção da visão de que a sociedade acelerou em demasia e que desacelerar pode ser uma estratégia inteligente para as pessoas, para as companhias e também como estratégia para as marcas.

A base desse pensamento está na lógica de que construir marcas não é uma corrida de cem metros rasos, mas uma maratona em busca da perpetuidade, construída sobre duradouras bases de relacionamentos com os consumidores.

Faz enorme sentido, convenhamos.

Abaixo, uma carta dela aos marqueteiros, em que, numa frase genial, define como antídoto ao coronavirus: “Long-term thinking is hand sanitizer to Bad Marketing: It kills it on contact.”

Leia na íntegra.

“In San Diego, I delivered a mainstage talk: Slow Down to Speed Up (#SDSU).

My belief (and the focus of the book I’ve been working on, one beloved sentence at a time!) is that in marketing, in business, in life there are key moments when we need to slow down now to speed up later on. To…

• Build momentum for what truly matters long-term.
• Focus our efforts.
• Interrupt the grind of the gears.
• Challenge ourselves to act in the best interests of the next 10 years, not the next 10 months or 10 days or 10 minutes.

The goal is to build a more solid foundation, a more sustainable and sane momentum.

Long-term thinking is hand sanitizer to Bad Marketing: It kills it on contact.

Even a week ago, it wasn’t clear that COVID-19 was going to force a slower pace on us all; it still seemed like a choice.

Yet, now, the NBA is closed. So is Europe. Tom Hanks is quarantined in Australia. Wheel of Fortune is filming without a live studio audience. Many of our friends have had clients or customers pause or pull their contracts. And maybe this week you are working from the dining room table.

Just yesterday, #SDSU was a strategy to adopt. Now, it’s what we have to do to survive if we are to thrive post-virus.

So what are our #SDSU moments during this time? Here are some places to start:

• Do less and obsess. My friend and marketer Mark Schaefer writes that his plan is to write his best book ever (and paint more watercolor paintings). (He’s an amazing artist.) He’ll do things that will help him catapult his business (and feed his soul more deeply) in the long term. He’ll do less speaking, less teaching; but he’ll obsess over his writing and projects at home.

• Deepen existing relationships. Do the slow work of building one subscriber at a time, on your own platform. A regular newsletter like this one would be my suggestion—because the key is to build on a platform YOU own. (Not Facebook. Not LinkedIn. Not Instagram.) Show up consistently, warts and all. (“Authentic” is a fancy way of saying “imperfect.”)And let’s check in more regularly with each other, more than we usually might; I’ve been doing this with friends on text and Instagram (my social platform of choice).“Community” isn’t something you look to monetize; it’s how to live your life.

• Seize the opportunity to get ahead of the chaos that today defines many marketing roles. How can you tee yourself and your department up right now, so that when things calm down you’re more on top of your game than ever before?

• Seize the opportunity to bolster your own industry. If your particular industry is struggling with the implications of Covid-19 more acutely than most, can you help your company to coalesce around a way to offer support and resources? Is there an opportunity for you to create some long-term goodwill in service to your community?”