If you're running a business right now, you might be wondering about marketing.

Should you stop? 

Can you stop? 

If you keep marketing how do you do so with the right respect for the current crisis going on? 

With that in mind, I wanted to give you some practical guidance for how to think about marketing right now.

Should you market? Yes.

When this is all said and done and behind us, a business will have fallen into one of two different categories:

• One group will hunker down, batten up the hatches, stop all spending on marketing and wait it out. 

• The other group will rise to the occasion and do something that is helpful and at the same time builds equity in their brand. They will pay less for the effort and earn more profit in the long term.

Should you market? Yes. A crisis or challenging times is as good a time as any to establish your brand and its relevance in the market. 

Brands that don’t run the risk of losing market status. Brands that don’t run the risk of losing market relevance and status. Brands that do build social equity in the market. This reduces price sensitivity later and is the main driver of long-term growth and profit of the company.

Think no one cares about your brand right now? 

They certainly will not care if you hunker down and abandon them in times of crisis. No one cares about your brand until you make it relevant to them. In a crisis, it’s easiest to do nothing. It takes courage to get in the market and bring value when everyone else is sitting on the sidelines. 

Brand Building Is How You Become Relevant

There is one action that you can do today and every day to add value to the people in your market and your business at the same time. 

That action is brand building.

Branding building is about demonstrating who you are and what you’re all about all while bringing value to your market.

Your brand isn’t about you. 

It’s what others think about you. It’s your reputation.

You can’t control. You can only influence by taking action. 

And make no mistake, doing nothing is an action.

Here are some examples of companies and leaders doing brand building right during Covid19.