How a Niche Agency Survives a Crisis

As the Managing director of UK-based digital agency, 3Sixty, who specializes in working with brands in the travel sector, Ryan Anthoney has an insider view on how companies are reacting to the difficulties caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. We sat down (virtually) with Ryan to talk about how he’s advising his travel clients to navigate the crisis, and how it’s affecting his agency’s business.

As digital travel & tourism specialists, how has the crisis affected your agency specifically?

Our decision to specialize in the travel sector has been incredible, however, right this second, it’s certainly not without challenge. There is a lot of uncertainty which makes planning difficult, we’ve paused recruitment plans and are having to dedicate our efforts to helping our travel partners.

As travel sector specialists we will definitely be hit financially, although we are lucky to have a great blend of travel partners, global, European and domestic, huge enterprises and small start-ups; this diversity probably helps.

To put the uncertainty into perspective though, within a few hours of the first UK based COVID-19 case, we had over £100,000 of work ‘delayed’.

How have the travel brands you work with adjusted their marketing for the crisis?

Non-essential spend is being cut back, and we completely get it. Pay-per-click (PPC) as an example probably isn’t a wise investment, right now, the population, as much as they’d like to, aren’t going to be booking holidays.

With that said, some travel brands with deep pockets have used this as an opportunity to get on with activity that puts them in a strong position for when the market bounces back. Less focus on driving trade, and more focus on getting the website in tip-top shape, improving user journeys, driving conversion, boosting page load speed, and for some, building a new website altogether.

How is the 3Sixty team managing full remote-working?

So far so good, it’s been pretty easy for us, we offer flexible working; both location and time, we even provide unlimited holiday – so I really mean FLEXIBLE.  Slack can make you lazy, you can easily spend 5 minutes talking on Slack, and achieve the same as you would in a 20-second phone call, so we are making sure we jump on the phone when needed. Zoom has been excellent, daily stand up meetings, everyone seeing each other’s face, has actually made us closer as a team and more aligned.

The crisis has necessitated a move from in-person meetings to virtual communication. How has this affected relationships with clients?

We love spending time with clients, however, we live in a digital world. Face-to-face is great, but a virtual face to face is a time-efficient back up. We’ve found that we are able to have more ‘face-to-face’ meetings using Zoom which has been a bonus. This is especially important when working with clients who aren’t within a quick commute. Last week in the space of one morning, I spoke to people from Australia, Italy, Sweden and Germany, in addition to a client-based just down the road.

You’re UK-based but part of a digital tourism think tank that advises travel leaders across Europe. How are travel leaders in other parts of Europe adapting to the crisis?

It’s different for each country, those in Italy are way ahead in terms of crisis management, those in less affected areas are now looking to plan for the inevitable. Some are already working on rebound campaigns to drive Q4 or Q1 2021 sales. Others are still focused purely on providing customer service and driving positive engagement; it’s the perfect opportunity to showcase your customer service credentials.

And what measures are you advising them to take?

For me, it’s about understanding your audience. Talk to them, where are their heads? What are they thinking? If they need some positivity, provide inspiration, engage, but don’t try to convert them, they probably aren’t in this headspace… yet.

I’d reduce marketing investment that’s focused on driving bookings, I’d focus energy on being a good brand, providing exceptional service, educating, informing, helping, and inspiring. When the market picks up again, you’ll be front of mind.

Looking to the future, how can travel brands prepare for another crisis like this?

It’s hard to predict, I can honestly say I had absolutely no idea this would happen. Operationally I am sure that brands will adjust how they operate, whether that is staff contract types, having ample buffer in their bank balance, investment in systems and digital, security and bonding, scenario planning.

Thanks, Ryan, any final thoughts?

This is going to get worse before it gets better. But it will get better. Stay strong and the good times will come. You are going to see a serious sector bounce back when COVID-19 rates start dropping and consumer confidence returns, there will be casualties, but supply and demand will create a very buoyant sector.

I wanted to let travel brands know that I am happy to offer any assistance I can during the next few months, I’ll be dedicating a day a week to help travel brands start prepping for the future, this could include strategic planning, campaign brainstorming or independent customer/prospect interviews. We are in this together.