In this time of business interrruption, try cackling!

There was sign many years ago: "A hen lays one egg and cackles, and everybody knows about it. A salmon lays thousands of eggs and nobody knows." That’s the power of advertising. So in this time of disruption, cackle! Don’t ignore your advertising. And if you can’t cackle, get someone else to do it for you. There are many formal and informal ways to advertise. Explore all.

When deciding which option(s) to use, consider these points:

1. Easy to execute. You want a solution that does not involve a lot of production work that may not be available or easily accessible. The last thing you need is a lengthy production that by the time it is completed, the crisis is over or worst still, the business is in jeopardy. Many media houses have capabilities to produce the work, so consider these. Work with your ad agency. They have the resources to deliver. You may know an artist in the community who can do the graphic work for you. You need the material, they need the work.

2. Cost effective. It goes without saying the financial strain is affecting all businesses. You will want to carefully weigh the value of the results you are aiming for against the cost of achieving it: "What am I going to generate in sales as a result of the advertising" is as true in bad times as it is in good times.

3. Efficiency. You don’t want to invest more than is absolutely needed to do the job of reaching the people who most likely want to buy what you have to sell. There is no time you can afford to be wasteful with you advertising investment, especially now. There is a science behind working out efficiency, but the principle is to reach the most people you want to expose your advertising to with the least amount of investment. You will want to understand how much relevant audience the media channel you select will reach.

There are some simple easy to implement and informal ways to advertise ways too, like the community WhatsApp groups. If there isn’t one, create it. Don’t dismiss anything. Remember the town crier - mic men of a bygone era? Just be sensible and respectful of people’s right to peace and quiet.

But the response is not only to advertise. It’s a tough decision since what you need to do and what you can afford aren’t always aligned. People’s minds are going to be focused on must-have items. It becomes more challenging therefore if your products and services aren’t high priority at this time. So, don’t ignore the fact that there are going to be opportunities in a crisis. You may be forced to think laterally to uncover new services, or products you can provide.

There may be opportunities to collaborate with other community businesses. Are there cottage industry products that you can make available in your shop? Do you need a capability other businesses may have? For instance, fast food outlets with idle deliverymen you can use to provide a new service to people who don’t want to go out.

At times like these there are undoubtedly going to be businesses and people eager to provide the services you need. Be empathetic and adopt the mindset we all need to support each other. We need to be collaborative co-operatives. Finding communal ways to keep our businesses going and importantly, people employed. We will all discover and learn new ways of providing products and services to the changing needs of TT. And we will all be the better for it.

The TT Chamber thanks Anthony M Inglefield, managing director, Ogilvy Caribbean (a Chamber member) for this contribution.