SEIZING OPPORTUNITIES THROUGH MARKETING DURING COVID-19

Even in a time of crisis, businesses have to go on. Retail outlets are facing great difficulties as their traditional modes of operation are disrupted due to lockdown measures. They are unable to persuade potential customers to purchase their products in person nor are they able to allow potential customers to try out their products in their shops. A lot of business plans have been disrupted, such as conferences, trade shows, soft launch of products, etc. Brands need to re-look into their current strategies. To continue operations, e-commerce is the only way to go. Statistics have shown that online shopping isn’t affected by the pandemic and may have actually grown further due to the pandemic.

*Do I need to buy more clothes or shoes when I am hardly going out now? Hey! Show us some concern!*

Won’t it nice if our favourite brands show us some concern instead?

This is a great opportunity for brands to outshine themselves now. It’s time for brands to show us some Tender Loving Care (TLC). In this post, I will share the good jobs did by some of the brands which I frequent. This is not a sponsored post.

1. Skin Inc

Skin Inc is my favourite skincare brand. I am one of their loyal customers. For those who are new to the brand, here's a brief summary. Their star product is "My Daily Dose Custom Blended Serum". This serum can be customised to suit your needs. For the service crew to be able to customise the Serum for your needs, a test if firstly required. The test consists of questions such as, do you exercise, what are the areas of your concern, are you fair or tanned... At the end of it, the service crew would recommend the products that would suit your skin type

During this circuit breaker, Skin Inc invited their customers to a yoga session over Zoom. It's an excellent technique to reach out and remained conntect to its customer base. This is a very sweet gesture of Skin Inc. Life at home can be pretty stagnant, so why not get everyone to flow together. Yoga can help to get everyone moving, at the same time, reducing stress and anxiety.

It's honestly great to see Skin Inc stepping up their game to offer the customer a free yoga session. Although they are in the beauty industry, by doing this, they position themselves under the "self-care" section as well. You know what is impressive too. Nothing about their products was mention in that newsletter. This goes to show their sincerity towards us, the consumers.

2. Hotels.com

I booked most of my overseas accommodation via Hotels.com. I intended to visit Japan in early May 2020. But for the pandemic, I ought to have returned from a spring vacation in Japan just a few weeks ago. :(

Free cancellation is part of the obligation for 1 of my bookings. Thankfully, I am lucky enough to have free cancellation for all my bookings. It took some time, but I applaud Hotels.com for working earnestly to help all the customers to get back our full refund. The pandemic was not within anyone’s contemplation but Hotels.com and the various accommodation operators worked hard in providing me with a satisfactory outcome.

I also have a Silver Membership with them too, and it's expiring sometime this year. I didn’t request to have my membership extended. It slipped my mind. However, I am happy to know that they extended our membership for free. I am sure that Hotels.com have received numerous emails about the membership, and there was some miscommunication. Once again, they worked hard on this issue, admitted their mistakes and gave all of us a happy answer. I believe in Brands who apologise for their mistakes. Would I continue to book my accommodations with them? YES! Their customer services have been really prompt and kind.

3. Classpass

I have been using Classpass for a few months. I paused my membership since the Circuit Breaker starts. It's free of charge if you opted for the pause, but initially, it was only free for the month of April. I wanted to cancel my membership because Circuit Breaker was extended to the end of May. To my surprise, I can now pause for an indefinite period. Classpass has kindly extended the pause plan until further notice to ensure everyone safety.

All in all, the above brands are very mindful of their costumers' situation. Skin Inc provided a free yoga session. Hotels.com and Classpass are very mindful of their customer safety about money. No doubt, it's a difficult time for everyone now. It’s great that Hotels.com tried their best to get full refunds for all their customers and extending their membership. Classpass extended their free pause. This is a tough decision to make, especially if you are a business owner. Even though times are hard for businesses presently, it is still worth the investment in terms of time, money and effort to protect and maintain the existing customer-client connections. If you help them to tide through this difficult time, when things get better in the future, they may come back to you because they trust you to continue to do a good job. I trust them.

Of course, there are other brands which are doing good too, but since I frequent these brands, it’s easier for me to quote them as examples. If you have any ideas that you wish to find out more, feel free to comment below.

x, Esther