COVID-19 in email marketing. How to react?

    by Irina Podorvan
    29.04.2020
    Coronavirus email marketing To make a pause or continue sending? That is the question email marketers and businesses think about these days. Last month was difficult for the whole world, coronavirus shatters everything that was being built for a long time. Business is in stress as well as clients. Thus, it is highly important to support them, and mass mailing is the most suitable for it. To help you understand what to do and give ideas for email campaigns, we collect examples of coronavirus mass mailing. The quarantine will end and the future success depends on your behavior at this time. Read the article to know how to support clients, save their loyalty, and sales.

    Coronavirus crisis: Brands reaction

    Difficult times always show who is who. In today’s situation, everyone chooses own strategy and top brands do it too:
    • some brands try to support customers and cheer up them giving some gifts,
    • some keep silent and give money to help people with COVID-19,
    • some stop mass mailing in the case to save budget,
    • some continue the deal and email campaigns because of online business,
    • others ignore the situation.
    What is the right position? If you work with customers online, marketers advise you to continue mass mailing or make this channel priority for communication because of its profitability in combination with price and quality. If you are an offline business it is a good variant to send emails at least one time per week not to give clients to forget you. We’re sure if you have a big audience your duty is at least to inform and support and at best to help them to survive the pandemic. Let's look at how famous brands respond to coronavirus.
    • Audi For the first time in history rings of their logo become separate.

    Audi before and after coronavirus

    Before and after

    The company asks to make distance physically and stay together in the mind. Let’s watch how it happened:

    • Burger King It changes the tagline of the store. Instead of “Home of the Whopper” “Stay Home”.

    Burgerking after coronavirus

    • IKEA The company posts a social video of the importance and advantages of staying home.
    • Coca-Cola In London on Times Square brand adds space in the name. They want to remind that people should keep the distance.

    Coca-Cola before and after coronavirus

    Before and after

    • Nike It starts the campaign with a new tagline: “If you ever dreamed of playing for millions around the world, now is your chance. Play inside, play for the world”. In such a way the company tries to urge people to stay home.

    Nike's tagline

    Furthermore, they make premium training in their app Nike Training Club free.

    • Pornhub It has canceled the payment for the premium subscription until 23, April. The platform wants to make customers adhere to quarantine.
    • Marvel The company offers all cult comics for free on the period of quarantine. You can download them in the app Marvel Unlimited.
    • Apple They have created an app with info about COVID-19. In the application, you can read what symptoms, how to prevent infection, etc.
    Many brands and companies start to produce things that aren’t peculiar to them: Barbie and Fisher-Price, BMW, Lamborghini, New Balance, Ralph Lauren, Armani, Yves Saint Laurent, Balenciaga, Zara will sew the protecting masks and lab coats to fight with coronavirus. As we see, the famous brands don’t stay by in difficult times and try to change the situation to the best. Let’s have a look at what is going on in the mass mailing field.

    What emails brands send to increase clients’ loyalty in coronavirus time

    Quarantine is the best time to show and multiply customers’ trust and loyalty, not only sale something them. One of the variants to save users is to go on mass mailing: it is cheap and communicates directly with the recipient. What changes happen with email campaigns and how companies deal with panic, let’s know it analyzing the best examples of coronavirus emails.
    • IHOP, a multinational pancake house restaurant chain

    Ihop coronavirus email

    What they do:

    • describe the actions that they do to provide safety of visitors;
    • ensure that team members are healthy and protect guests health;
    • propose other variants to use the services of the restaurant without going inside.
    • COOKSMARTS, meal planning service

    Smartcook coronavirus email

    What they do:

    • advice people how to spend quarantine time with pleasure;
    • explain that this period is the most suitable for improving cooking skills;
    • for users who worried about products, service has prepared guides and made meal plans flexible;
    • get a special price to engage the number of purchasers.
    • StubHub, the company of exchange and sale tickets for any events

    Stubhub coronavirus email

    What they do:

    • propose profitable condition in case of canceling the event because of coronavirus;
    • give the chance to visit other events in the next 12 months;
    • get the contacts for asking questions;
    • send an email, not from the company name, but the president’s name for closer communication.

    Marketingprofs email coronavirus

    What they do:

    • prepare the list of the articles for businessmen about the coronavirus impact on marketing,
    • what happens with budget, customers’ online behavior;
    • give the timetable of online events for useful quarantine time.
    • Airbnb, the marketplace for booking homestays

    Airbnb email coronavirus

    What they do:

    • tell about rules and ability to cancel the booking;
    • give the condition of refund;
    • support recipient giving the link to the website’s page with information about coronavirus.
    • CVS Pharmacy, a subsidiary of the American retail and health care company CVS Health

    CVS pharmacy coronavirus email

    What they do:

    • give the alternative variants of using the service to safe clients from being infected;
    • create the ability to get a consultation online;
    • provide fast delivery.
    • ManyChat, the platform for creating chatbots

    Manychat coronavirus email

    What they do:

    • propose to know how to navigate businesses during COVID-19, take the deal online, keep the agency afloat, etc.;
    • give short information about the future virtual summit.
    Let’s also have a look at cold outreach in this time: Cold outreach covid email As the expression of reflection, the sender shows worrying about the recipient’s condition. The rest content hasn’t any words about coronavirus. As we see, the mass mailing is actual at all times and crisis is not an exception. COVID-19 requires marketers to be more flexible. Now as never before it is important to show love and care and sending emails connecting coronavirus is the best way to express it.

    Conclusion: Email marketing in coronavirus. What to do

    Quarantine time isn’t a reason to ignore customers and forget about them, vice verse staying the best friend in a difficult situation you have a chance to increase clients’ loyalty. You should:
        1. Not to ignore the situation.
        2. Write about your feelings and say that understand clients’ emotion in this situation.
        3. Make the quarantine time easier and more interesting for your clients. For example, send different quests or funny tests. If your business connects with education give the opportunity to use your platform for free or with a discount.
        4. Continue working as earlier if you have an online store. Not all people are scared, a big part feels boring and tries to fill the void and they start to buy online more often.
    So continue to send mass mailing campaign and we help ideas and instruments.

    Use Atomic Mail Sender for fast preparing the quarantine campaign and no COVID isn’t scared!

    Written by:
    Irina Podorvan
    Back to blog
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