Like many of our fellow residents in the Upstate of South Carolina, we are still in shock as we process what happened when Helene blew through our community. Many team members still lack power and have fled to various locations to stay with family or hunker down to wait it out.
And yet, we are watching the continued catastrophic story unfolding just an hour away in Western NC, feeling helpless and brokenhearted for the people suffering and loved ones searching for family members.
When Lindsay and I had our weekly one-on-one, we were still stunned and thinking through what our week should look like professionally.
Practically, our kids are out of school. There is no power or internet in most of our area. People we know and work with are still digging out from fallen trees and severe damage. Supplies are limited, and living through the day-to-day is hard for most of our community.
So what should we do when we sit at our computers this week?
It made me think there are certain things marketing firms should do when a disaster occurs. Here are eight we thought of—and we’d welcome additions from others to serve as a resource to others in case it is helpful:
- Check on your team to ensure everyone is okay and assess what help anyone needs. Cancel meetings and ensure everyone knows there are no expectations of normalcy.
- Check on your clients: Send emails, texts, and phone calls to see what immediate needs they may have that you could help with—even outside of the marketing realm.
- Manage expectations with clients who may not be in the affected area by setting up auto-responders indicating that you may be delayed in your response because of the situation.
- Cancel any pre-scheduled social media posts for your company and for any clients you post on behalf of. Also, check your past posts to make sure nothing sounds tone-deaf. Since the algorithm is not chronological, you wouldn’t want a post to pop up on someone’s feed that feels off.
- Make sure any social media posts you lift up operate as an amplifier, not a self-serving platitude. People are looking for resources and information—not to hear that you hope everyone is okay.
- Recognize that any deadlines you have might be moot for a while, and be okay with that. Do not pressure your clients to review and approve milestones just because your project management software said to.
- Don’t panic, and remind your clients of the same thing. The chaos we all feel now will dissipate. Thinking forward to a few months from now and envisioning what your life will likely look like then helps calm the swirls of anxiety we all feel now.
- Finally, as a marketer, remember that your work is not essential to a company facing a complete operational failure due to the storm. Support and offer ways to help in human ways—after all, we are working together to recover.
This week, we are trying to follow our own advice, remembering that sometimes the best way to serve others is to put our own needs aside.
