Your post-pandemic marketing plan should start with an environmental scan

The world in which your business will operate after the coronavirus pandemic will be much changed from the one that existed when you prepared your last marketing plan. 

When things return to something close to normal and you prepare to do business post-crisis, you will need to adjust or completely redo a marketing plan that was based on market facts and assumptions that no longer apply. One of the first steps you should take in revisiting that plan is to conduct a fresh environmental scan of the new business landscape in your industry and markets. 

An environmental scan is an assessment of the external economic, competitive, technological, social, and legal/regulatory forces that influence the performance of your business.

If you’ve ever conducted a strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) analysis, you’ll recognize those environmental factors as the sources of both the opportunities and the threats facing your business.

Ideally, your organization already regularly does some environmental scanning, either formally or informally, as you plan out marketing initiatives each year. If not, there will never be a more urgent time for you to start.

You won’t be able to gather meaningful data for much of your environmental scan until the crisis has ended, or is near the end, but now is a perfect time to start thinking about what you will need to know to adjust and succeed under all the various “new normals.” of the near future. 

What follows are just a few examples of the kinds of questions you might explore and some suggestions on how and where you can find answers. 

Economic. After only a few weeks, the economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic has already been sharp, severe, and in some industries catastrophic. Nobody knows for certain how long the hardship will continue, how deep the bottom will sink, or how permanent the economic damage will be. Most businesspeople will anxiously monitor the economy throughout the coming months.

Just following the news on a day-to-day basis will provide you with a steady stream of general economic news (perhaps more than you want to be exposed to). For more in-depth analysis, the federal and state governments provide a wealth of free geography- and industry-specific tracking data on unemployment rates, wage trends, and any number of other important economic indicators. Some online resources I find particularly useful for these types of data are the websites for the New York State Department of Labor (www.labor.ny.gov), the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (www.bls.gov), and the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (www.bea.gov). 

Competitive. Unfortunately, many businesses will not survive the prolonged closures and resulting economic downturn caused by this public-health emergency. Others have shifted the focus of their operations to adapt. The end result in many industries will be a different competitive landscape with some firms gone, some weakened or changed, or perhaps even new players entering the segment. You will need to get a sense of this new competitive set and reassess you company’s position within it.

Your salesforce and other frontline employees can be great resources here as they are out in the market, regularly interacting with customers or vendors, and collecting information about the competitive environment in the process. Regular professional networking is also a good way to learn news about competitors through the grapevine. 

Technological. One frequently discussed byproduct of the pandemic is how it caused a boom in the use of collaborative technologies like Zoom. Some experts believe that this sudden, widespread technology adoption will lead to a permanent increase of employees working from home, even after social-distancing restrictions are lifted. That’s just one example of the new reality leading to a technological transformation. 

This is a good time to take stock of technologies that exist that could change the way you deliver your offerings and interact with your customers. You could start by engaging an IT consultant or your existing IT staff to provide an inventory of the technologies available, an assessment of what makes sense for your operations, and what it would take for you to transition to them. 

Social. The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on our societal fabric is an enormous, multi-faceted dynamic that may take years, or even decades to play out. In the short-term, social effects will likely manifest themselves as shifts in consumer tastes and preferences. Will people be reluctant to attend concerts, sporting events, or theme parks even after the virus is brought under control? Will their expectations of the health-care system change? Will they desire more or less automation in everyday transactions? These are just a few of the countless questions that come to mind regarding consumer trends in the post-crisis world. 

This is an area where an independent market-research consultant would be extremely useful, if it is within your budget. Such firms are better equipped to conduct the often complex, in-depth research required to identify and quantify emerging consumer attitudes. They are more objective as well, increasing the likelihood that the information you get in the end is unbiased. If research on that scale is outside your budget, syndicated secondary data offered by services like Nielsen or Statista can provide valuable insights for a relatively low cost.

Legal/Regulatory. The most dramatic and immediate public policy responses to the virus, the social-distancing measures affecting the workforce and daily operations of essential and nonessential businesses alike, are already being felt in New York state. These may grow stricter as the number of COVID-19 cases and deaths increase. Beyond that, it seems likely that there will be new laws and regulations to address problems caused or exposed by the pandemic, which could impact sectors like health care, insurance, retail, and “gig economy” operations, just to name a few.

The resources to track legal and regulatory developments will vary, but in general, the trade organizations/publications in your industry are a good place to begin. Business advocacy is a mission of many chambers of commerce, and they can often provide information on new or potential legislation that might impact businesses in your local area. And as always, it is never a bad idea to contact your elected officials regularly about issues that will affect you. 

The post-pandemic business landscape is going to be challenging and filled with uncertainty. The marketers that survive and thrive in it will be those who take the time to thoroughly take stock of the new environment and adapt their plans accordingly.        

Vance Marriner is research director at The Central New York Business Journal and a part-time instructor of marketing at SUNY Oswego’s School of Business.