Most marketers aren’t prepared for a disaster.

The result: wasted time and money… or worse.

They were unprepared for the massive shutdown caused by the Microsoft/CrowdStrike update blunder.

You see, over the last 40 years, I’ve seen earthquakes, fires, floods, tornadoes, snowstorms, horrific events such as a spaceship blowing up, pandemic fear, stock market crash, and terrorism distract prospects’ attention from lead generation and sales.

I’ve seen these disasters destroy digital, TV, radio, and direct mail campaigns. But you can preemptively avoid the pain.

The impact can be national, regional, state, or local.

Nearly every area of the country is susceptible to natural or man-made disasters. And as uncomfortable as it is to think about it, the threat of a terrorist attack or mass shooting is an unfortunate reality today.

Most marketers saw a 15-20% drop-off in response to the first days of the Russian/Ukrainian war.

And, with the tornados in the South /Midwest and flooding in California, they saw drops in response as high as 80-95% for those in those areas.

While no one wants to dwell on such a sensitive topic, if a disaster occurs, do you have a strategy in place to keep your business running smoothly and avoid costly marketing blunders?

Step #1: Your strategy: Be proactive.

When considering your direct mail, pre-roll, TV/radio, email, and digital marketing during a terrible event, consider the disasters or horrific events.

Is it nationwide? Then suspend your marketing and wait… Responses will dry up during a crisis. Don’t waste your money.

In a manageable regional or state/local disaster (for example, a class 1 or 2 hurricane), the USPS diverts direct mail from affected zip codes to nearby processing and distribution facilities and is held for later delivery. Stop all mail to the areas. If digital, suppress the impacted geographical area.

Remember, your prospects in the impacted area won’t be paying attention to your TV ads or digital ads.

However, in a local catastrophic disaster like a hurricane or a terrorist attack, you may be faced with many days, weeks, or even months that go by before direct mail service resumes or prospects start responding to TV, radio, and digital ads.

Step #2: Suspend or reduce digital advertising in affected areas.

The same principle applies to your digital ads – a natural disaster will certainly suppress response.

On all digital media – Google, Truth Social, Facebook, Prerolls – suspend all marketing in affected areas, or at the very least, dramatically reduce spending.

This also applies to TV/radio –simply suppress those areas in your campaign.

Step #3: Market direct mail smart: Eliminate wasteful spending.

Natural disasters will almost certainly depress the response to your marketing.

For direct mail, it’s essential to watch the news and use the USPS resource on weather updates (click here) so you can make an informed decision on mailing areas and printing counts.

Be prepared to quickly edit printing counts and adjust mailing areas by eliminating mail in the impacted areas.

If you decide to avoid mailing, use the USPS resource mentioned above to identify affected areas, then eliminate those zip codes during your merge purge.

Step #4: For TV/radio: Avoid marketing when people watch the news or are terrified.

People in the area watch and listen but are unlikely to respond to your offer. And you’re likely to be preempted by emergency news.

Step #5: Timing: Watch and listen.

I recommend that my clients wait 2 to 3 weeks after the emergency is over before marketing into affected areas.

For some events, it might be 24-48 hours. For example, the shooting a few years back in Las Vegas had the highest impact on low response for the first 24 hours after the event. Within 4 days, results were back to normal.

Be prepared for depressed response ripples in surrounding areas. Just because an area isn’t directly affected by a disaster doesn’t mean it won’t affect your response. For example, after the shooting at the church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, all of Texas saw a 2-day drop in response.

An invasion by China against Taiwan will probably be more than two weeks.

Even if your prospects aren’t directly affected by the incident, they may still be affected by the news and disaster. Your mailing piece, emails, digital ads, TV/radio ads, or landing page will be the last thing on their minds.

One wildfire in Southern California limited the disaster to a few zip codes, and media attention lasted only one week. In this case, suppressing Southern California would not have made sense for most marketing pieces, but you should evaluate each situation on a case-by-case basis.

Step #6: Prepare your marketing infrastructure before a disaster occurs.

Thankfully, there are a few things you can do before disaster strikes to protect your business, profits, and infrastructure.

The time to prepare for a disaster is now. As the saying goes, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Ensure your business has a solid business continuity plan in the event of a catastrophe or natural disaster in your area.

Step #7: Have a backup plan for your call fulfillment center.

If you take orders over the phone, be prepared.

Have a customer service backup plan. After the San Diego, California, wildfires, Real Health Laboratories closed its home offices, call center, and fulfillment center for 36 hours. As a result, product shipments were delayed for about two days.

Have a backup call center to handle calls and orders from customers and business associates. After Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans clothier Orient Expressed survived largely because it immediately rerouted phone calls to a backup phone service. The company continued to take orders and phone calls and explained delays to customers.

If your fulfillment center is where a tornado destroyed the area, what’s your plan?

Step #8: Map the “points of failure” of your business or marketing plan.

Analyze your customer processes from beginning to end to map out areas

where a natural disaster could disrupt your business. For example, keep your emergency contact list and procedures updated and review them regularly so you’re always prepared for any disruptions.

Step #9: Consider donating to victims of the disaster.

If your business is donating, You may want to 1) Tell your customers a portion of their sales will help the victims and 2) Offer a matching donation.

Unfortunately, you can’t control Mother Nature or crazy people. But armed with some preventative measures and a preventative action plan, you can take steps to ensure you don’t waste money and your business survives, no matter what the situation.

Give us a call at 615-933-4647 or email Michael at [email protected] to discuss how we can help you.