Staying connected with customers in a helpful, meaningful way is the #1 best marketing practice, no matter how good or bad things are.

Focusing on education is the marketing magic formula that works even with social distancing, although I prefer the term “physical distancing” since we can still be social despite physical distaning.

The marketing method that is hands-down the most effective and profitable in good times and bad is to approach marketing with an educational approach. I believe in this so much that I trademarked the term markeding® to convey the mashup of marketing and education.

Markeding is not a typo – it’s the most effective (and ethical) way to build credibility, visibility and sellability. I noticed a pattern from my years of teaching marketing courses, speaking and working one-on-one with clients: a fear or distaste for sales and marketing. Marketing means maximizing relationships.

Customers have needs in good times and bad, how can you help them?

For example, I started my week on the first day of physical distancing getting an email out to my employees educating them on what clients would need our support the most and how we could best support them so all communications from my team to customers were super service-centric and aligned. We agreed that our customers needed our leadership on what to do and how to do it. Ask yourself what your customer needs to understand, whether that’s how a product or service works, what your core values are, or news at your organization.

What I am reminding the clients I serve is not to make marketing challenging in spite of challenging times. Look at what you CAN do (not what you can’t)

You CAN ALWAYS EDUCATE.

Live meetings that share information can be done via webinars, messages to educate your audience that you are still serving them (perhaps changing now) can be shared on the website, blog, Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin and Instagram. Posting positive messages to keep your audience engaged keeps the love alive.

When in doubt, educate. Approach marketing in an educational way. While I may not be speaking to public audiences right now, I am still doing webinars, blogging and writing educational content to help my current and prospective customers.

As companies and customers are shifting to more web-based work due to physical distancing (again, I refuse to use “social distancing” since you can still be social despite physical distance!), staying connected with positive, relevant and useful content that keeps you in contact is key to sowing sales.

markeding® puts relationships at the center of the marketing strategy, and in doing so empowers them, sowing and growing business even in times of distancing.

If you are feeling stressed out and would like to talk, my team or I would be more than happy to help.

Be well, stay well!