It’s clear by now that COVID-19 is having a significant impact on communities across the globe. One implication of this fact is that businesses large and small are having to pivot their marketing strategies, adjusting for realities like canceled events, smaller budgets from decreasing revenue, and the inability to collaborate in person for the foreseeable future. 

This article isn’t a one-stop-shop to fix all of those problems. What it is, though, is guidance about how to tackle the crucial first step of assessing your existing plan—salvaging the parts that will still be effective and cutting the parts that aren’t worth the investment. 

Let’s get started. 

Examine Your Pre-Planned Content

First, it’s absolutely essential that you go through any content or outreach you had scheduled for the next several months. Many companies work on blog content and social posts weeks or months in advance, and then schedule them to post automatically down the line. In a crisis like the one we’re experiencing now, this approach means that content that gets published as scheduled could be irrelevant at best and tone-deaf and disrespectful at worst. 

If you’re one of the many companies that uses this approach to getting content out there, take the time right away to sift through whatever you have coming in the next several weeks. Delete the posts that won’t resonate in today’s environment, update any captions that won’t be well-received, and generally assess whether the content you had planned is still appropriate. In all likelihood, some of it won’t be, and that’s okay. It’s better to eliminate that content altogether than to try to find a way to force it.

Assess the Content That’s Left

Once that step is completed, you’ll probably have a better idea of what your existing content marketing strategy will look like for the next few weeks and months. This is the time to ask yourself some questions: 

• Is my strategy as it stands today still effective?
• What gaps do I now have that need to be filled?
• Are there any content ideas we just scrapped that could be repurposed?
• How can I deliver value to my audience without disrespecting the reality of COVID-19?

Adjust Distribution Strategies and Fill Content Gaps

If your pre-planned strategy is still largely effective, great! Maybe think about the ways you could add to it or tailor the distribution strategies to a digital audience. For example, channels like connected TV are seeing higher engagement during this time. There may be a more effective distribution channel available today than the one you originally planned. 

On the other hand, if you’re missing critical pieces of content, take a look back at the ideas you had to scrap. What value were they delivering for your audience? We’ll use a fictional example to make this point clearer. 

Let’s say Lemonlight had a post scheduled about how to travel in order to scout locations for a production. Given the social-distancing measures that m