Use Customer Understanding To Guide Your Pandemic Marketing Strategy

The COVID-19 pandemic adds even more consumer considerations to marketers’ already full plates. Stay-at-home orders, unemployment, and anxiety about the virus have altered shopping behavior, technology adoption, and expectations. But despite this uncertainty, now is not the time to pull back on marketing: In fact, businesses need to keep investing in marketing to move through the crisis. To provide value and interactions that are helpful, human, and handy, marketers must consider how drastically COVID-19 impacts the current needs and emotions of their consumers.

To help our clients, we’ve created this collection of consumer insights that shows how consumers are reacting to the pandemic across industries and regions.

What Brands Must Do

• Put Your Customer First When Building Your Pandemic-Proof Marketing Strategy (Time to read: 2 minutes)
• Decision Making During The COVID-19 Crisis Requires A Bias Toward People, Not Profit (Time to read: 2 minutes)
• A Framework For Helping Customers In Crisis (Time to read: 8 minutes)
• Craft Your Brand Response Strategy For Pandemics And Other Uncontrollable Crises (Time to read: 8 minutes)

What Brands Must Know About Consumer Energy

• As Overall Energy Wanes, Preserve Relationships With Your Highest-Energy Consumers (Time to read: 3 minutes)
• Consumer Energy Steadies Overall, Pulses In Certain Regions (Time to read: 3 minutes)

What Brands Must Know About How US Consumers Will Recover

• Post-Pandemic US Consumer Recovery Will Vary By Personal Experiences (Time to read: 4 minutes)
• What It Will Take For US Online Adults To Feel Safe Reengaging In Person (Time to read: 3 minutes)
• Anticipate US Consumers’ Brand Expectations During The Pandemic Recovery (Time to read: 6 minutes)
• The State Of The US Shopper — COVID-19 (Time to read: 12 minutes)

What Brands Must Know About Global Consumers

• The UK In The Pandemic: How Consumers And Businesses Are Changing (Time to read: 10 minutes)
• China Shopper Insights And The Impact Of COVID-19 (Time to read: 6 minutes)
• How The COVID-19 Crisis Is Affecting Consumer Behaviors In France (Time to read: 10 minutes)

What Brands Must Know About Consumers In Specific Industries

• Consumers Weigh Travel Industry Uncertainty With Growing Desire For Adventure (Time to watch: 5 minutes)
• COVID-19 Raises Consumers’ Health Consciousness (Time to watch: 4 minutes)

Not a Forrester client? Visit our COVID-19 hub for further insight on responding, managing, and leading during a pandemic.