These days, bad news travels faster than ever — and it can cost your business dearly. Mitigate the damage and keep your reputation intact with a crisis plan.

Do B2B marketers really need a crisis plan? Think about the problems Boeing had with its Dreamliner aircraft. Boeing is a primarily B2B company, but the Dreamliner’s battery fires and other woes made it (and its manufacturer) more of a very public cautionary tale than a success story. On a much smaller scale, your business can be impacted by poor customer reviews, a manufacturing incident, a safety problem, or a glitch in your customer service. Little things can really add up — and if you don’t have a crisis plan, they can be dangerous.

Having a crisis plan in place can help you address these tricky situations with tact and speed. Mostly, it involves monitoring what is said about your company online and responding quickly. Even companies that don’t engage in a lot of online marketing will often have a “dark” social media channel, such as a dormant Twitter account, that can be activated rapidly in case of a PR emergency.

That said, the most important part of a well-thought-out crisis plan is good old-fashioned prevention:

• Go where your customers are. You probably have a few important channels where you interact with your customers, but don’t make the mistake of ignoring other channels such as social media outlets in your crisis plan.
• Communicate with your customers well and often. Quality, quantity, and speed all matter in a crisis plan. So respond quickly and courteously to emails, social media posts, and blog comments.
• Find the good in the bad. Learn from negative experiences, and share that wisdom with your employees, customers, and stakeholders.
• Nurture your relationships in the good times. Build great relationships with your clients, and those relationships will weather PR storms with customer loyalty largely intact.

Having a crisis plan is all well and good, but the best plan is to do everything you can to never have crises in the first place. One way to build relationships, communicate with prospects and clients, get your message out, and establish yourself as an industry thought leader is through great content. Send eNewsletters, keep your blog updated, post fresh content on your website: These are all ways to show your positives so that they outweigh whatever negative news may come your way. And if you can’t keep up with your Web presence in-house, outsourcing is worth consideration!