Unforeseen events like natural disasters commonly spark emergency announcements, but they’re not the only reason to send these alerts. As a business, it’s important to monitor news about your brand and overall industry to identify the need for a crisis marketing PPC campaign.
But, what is a crisis marketing? And why are PPC ads the go-to advertising option in these cases?
What is Crisis Marketing?
Crisis marketing is a strategy that allows you to deliver informative messages and mitigate the impact of a negative occurrence or trend in your business or industry.
In short, PPC platforms like Google Ads help your company react in real-time to an unexpected boost in attention.
If it’s good attention, then the campaign should not be a crisis, but instead an opportunity campaign. Simply put, opportunity PPC campaigns help you capitalize on good attention, like a positive news report.
Now, if you’re not getting the best attention, it’s always a good idea to mitigate the negative news and get in front of your audience using paid ad campaigns. Keep in mind that there is no silver-bullet solution that fits all scenarios.
Instead, you need to adapt the platform and messaging to the audience demographic you want to target. For instance, if you’re targeting people under the age of 25 in the US, TikTok may be a great option. Or, in case you’re looking for adults over the age of 45, about 47% spend most of their time on either Facebook or LinkedIn.
Is PPC the Best Channel for Crisis Marketing Campaigns?
There are many digital and print channels you can use to manage a crisis in your business or industry, including organic approaches like SEO.
The problem is that organic social media and search engine marketing takes a few weeks to produce results, so they’re not ideal when it comes to spreading a time-sensitive message quickly.
This is the reason why PPC is the perfect crisis marketing platform. While it’s important to optimize your campaign to get better results at a lower cost, ads allow you to place your message in front of the right demographic in your most relevant areas right away.
Keep in mind that PPC requires a robust strategy to succeed.
High bids can help you claim the top spots temporarily, so even if this is your initial strategy, remember to optimize your campaigns to get higher rankings more consistently without having to pay top dollar for them.
How to Create a Crisis Marketing PPC Plan
Firstly, it’s important to create a PPC marketing strategy specifically for emergency situations. If not, you run the risk of making big mistakes and potentially causing more issues when rushing to build and execute a crisis strategy at the same time.
Each crisis marketing PPC plan has to be tailored to your business’ unique requirements, but here are three general guidelines you should follow.
1. Understand the Type of Crises You Can Address Through Marketing
First you need to understand the different types of crises and determine which ones you’ll create a plan for. If you have the resources, the best practice is to create one strategy for each type of crisis. Here are some examples you can plan for.
- Emergency Response: Occurs when there is a natural disaster or similar event that disrupts your business.
- Reputation Damage: This can take place when a high-ranking representative says something incendiary or due to a similar event.
- Market Disruptions: New technologies, limitations due to supply chain issues, and similar challenges can cause market disruptions that require public announcements.
2. Build Your Crisis Plan
Next, it’s time to start to piece your crisis marketing PPC plan together. It’s a good idea to create different protocols to target the distinct types of crises you may face. Your response flow should look something like this:
- Assess the potential issue;
- If possible, work on containing the crisis;
- Create a tailored strategy to handle this specific scenario;
- Implement the actions laid out in your strategy;
- Start building your credibility right away with reassuring messaging.
3. Implement a Deployment Strategy
Next, it’s time to implement the strategy. At this point, it’s a good idea to find a robust app VPN download if you don’t have one already as this will help you monitor the web without having personalized content skew what you see.
Follow the crisis closely and maintain your ads running for as long as you have to. Some crises can be averted once the threat has subsided, while others will require a long-term credibility campaign to restore your reputation.
Create the Best PPC Crisis Marketing Campaign
Keeping a clear and concise messaging through a crisis can help prime your audience and help them adapt to a changing environment. PPC is a great channel to help disseminate your message and make sure that you get as many eyes as possible on your content or announcement.
Market disruptions are usually unpredictable, but they are not the only thing that can produce uncertainty in an industry.
Emergencies like natural disasters, content that damages your reputation, and even low-quality competitors flooding the market can merit an announcement on your behalf.
So, make sure to constantly monitor your professional ecosystem and take the right steps to improve your marketing messaging.
5 Crisis Marketing PPC Tips to Improve Your Results
Business crises can have a major impact on your bottom line if you don’t address them immediately. And, even when your crisis marketing PPC strategies kick in right away, it’s still a good idea to follow the tips below to minimize the impact on your reputation.
- Evaluate going dark and taking your socials offline while you fix the issue;
- Add negative keywords to prevent irrelevant impressions and protect your budget;
- Retarget your ads to drill the messaging into your audience;
- Be sensitive to your audience and avoid alarming messaging;
- Start rebuilding your reputation right away with additional credibility ad campaigns.
This article is written by Stephen Rogers, a seasoned software developer with over five years of hands-on experience. Stephen finds AI technology endlessly fascinating. His track record in the industry speaks volumes about his expertise and reliability.
Stephen’s passion for staying at the forefront of technological advancements has made him a trusted authority in the field. Stephen aims to simplify the complex world of AI, making it accessible to all.
When he’s not navigating complex technology, you’ll find him immersed in gaming, cheering on esports, or binge-watching TV shows.
