WebiculesWe all have seen this happening at least once in our lives. A brand, which is known for various good qualities, such as purity and its commitment towards serving just about the best, is brought down to the level of dirt for faults of its own. There are some brands that are able to recover from this huge impact on their brand’s image, while there are a few, which do not cope so well with the debacle.
So, how can one avoid such a situation without damaging their brand’s image even further? There are a few ways to ensure that such a situation never occurs for your brand, such as maintaining the quality of the products that you are marketing; keeping a check on the ingredients that are going into the edible content, and sticking by the promises that you make to your customers. If the organization still somehow witnesses a downfall, there a couple of strategies that could be utilized to mitigate the damage as much as possible. The following are a few examples of the same:
- Have a back-up plan: Many do not realize the value of being ready in the face of a danger. It is easy to think that a backup plan does not come in handy ever, if you have never faced a similar issue with respect to your brand. Nevertheless, a basic plan outlining how to go about a certain crisis should always be in place. Along with this, employees could also be informed over the same subject so that they are better prepared to deal with customers, as and when there is ever a need for the same.
- Talk: We must understand that communication is the key to every problem in the digital world (and otherwise too, of course). While every other marketing strategy would work just as much, but nothing could work as well as communication does. We underestimate the power of talking to a customer and we make the mistake of not knowing their grievances before putting across a solution. Additionally, we often undervalue the power of listening as well. If we listen carefully to what our customers have to say, half of the problems could vanish, since the answer to the problem lies in the problem itself.
- Digital Marketing: There’s no denying that traditionally marketing a product is always the first choice for a lot of big brands, but there’s also no denying that digital marketing is just as important. Many big firms have come to realize the significance of the same in the last few years. When you are interacting with your customer on a digital platform, your customer is bound to feel closer to you. In the same way, when one is interacting with their customer on a digital platform, the customer is also bound to trust you more than they would after seeing an advertisement of your product in a newspaper or on TV. Personal interactions with the customers build customer loyalty and trust, which are two of the most vital components for a successful strategy. Once it comes to mitigating the damage done on a brand’s image, digital marketing has been proven to be really effective, considering how talking could reinstate faith in your customers, while making them believe that you as a marketer are just as concerned about your customers’ safety as they are.
- Effective PR Campaigns: An effective PR strategy could mitigate more than one can even imagine. And, a good PR strategy coupled with social media marketing could work wonders for a damaged name. Think of Nestlé Maggi’s ban in India and how it rebounded from it. This would be an example of the aforementioned. Many celebrities in the past have also used public relations strategies to do damage control for their name in the entertainment industry. Similarly, various brands, which have had the misfortune of witnessing a tarnished brand name, have yielded quite a lot of profitable results by using both the PR and social media marketing strategies together.
