Digital marketing disasters are like earthquakes — they can happen without warning you. They can shake your business and may make put off your clients. Sales will surely be affected. However, it is important to understand that every business has undergone such a problem at some point. With that, you should at least learn some valuable lessons from them.
Your business should always be ready for any marketing disaster — whether it’s product-related scandals or issues involving the higher echelons of the company. Continuity is a priority; otherwise, your business may suffer huge losses. If you are looking for some ways to deal with digital marketing disasters, here are some of the pointers to keep in mind:
List down the possible scenarios
You will never know what you’re going to deal with, but you can still assume different scenarios and build your strategies around them. List down the most possible or probable issues that may happen to your business. Will a hacker take the website as hostage? Possibly. Will an irate customer start a petition page on Facebook to ban your products? It may happen. Will the servers be down? Probably. These are the types of issues that you should be planning for. Explore every angle and come up with an appropriate plan.
Start training your team
Once you know what you are possibly dealing with in the future, now is the perfect time to train your teams. For instance, you can train your social media and community management team to respond to irate customers if there are product-related complaints. Train your PR and marketing communications members on how to respond to media queries and interviews. You may also train your designers and partner website development company if you need to come up with a new image or brand look for the business.
Stock up on content
Truth be told, content is the lifeline of your business. This is among the reasons customers visit your website and social media page. When a disaster strikes, there may be a gap in the posting of content, as you are still dealing with the problem. However, content that is not time-sensitive should be at the ready. However, make sure that the topics are always on the safe side. Any risqué messaging may make your business stay much longer under the bad light.
Rework your existing plan
You may already have an existing digital marketing disaster plan, but you should not stick to it too much. You need to rethink and rework it, especially that new issues arise every year. Preparedness is your key here, so you better be always on the lookout for possible threats and scandals that may strike your business.
Plan wisely
When you’re running a business, you need to expect that digital marketing can sometimes go wrong. Or maybe, your customers and competitors have issues with your products and services. But you can efficiently deal with these when you have a comprehensive plan and strategies that follow a specific course of action.