By now, the whole world is aware of the coronavirus and a lot are getting anxious from hearing the news of the virus spreading and cities getting locked down. If you’re an office worker, you are probably working from our home now because of the quarantine but instead of wasting time contemplating on the horrors of covid-19, it’s better if we can think of ways to help during the spread of this awful virus.
So here I am, I want to share my knowledge and provide some tips on how to get through this from a marketing perspective.
We’ve seen various challenges throughout our time in business and so many different things can impact on our ability to gain customers. Obviously, this COVID crisis is very unprecedented because we’ve never in our lifetimes experienced something like this, but I thought I would share some things about marketing and how small businesses could try and work through this as best as possible to thrive or at least survive until life returns to what we know is normal.
1. Communicate with your client base
First of all, take a moment to review what your brand’s stand is on the COVID-19 so you know if you have certain measures that you are able to put in place, like what precautions you guys are doing, what training you’ve done, or what you understand about the effects of the virus. It’s really important to communicate these things to your client base.
You may have probably received newsletters outlining a company’s stand during these times. Some do really well but some are so long-winded that their letter is just repeating the government’s advice. If you decide to send out communication to your customers or clients about your COVID-19 stand, remember to think about the tone of voice and how your brand message can come across through. Through all of this your need to keep your credibility and remain true to your brand values.
2. Check your untapped market
Take a look at your marketing groups and have a think if there are new customers that are out there that you want to target. Maybe a secondary group of people that you haven’t actively marketed to. You should consider extending your reach to those people because that meant a little bit wider reach.
Even if it’s a 5 percent left in another group it’s 5 percent more than you’re getting previously so just really have a good think about where your target market is sitting. If you have done really well reaching out to them you should even take a look at a tertiary group of people that you could extend your marketing.
3. Pause the peripherals
We all know from businesses that cash flow is absolute king, especially at this moment when survival is in the mind of every business owner.
Do some quick analysis to know where your client base is coming, where your leads are coming from, from which medium you’re focusing on.
This is really important so can dive really deep and focus your marketing efforts on the top two or even one medium that is actually driving you leads and sales. Once you have identified them, it’s a time to condense your marketing.
Peripheral marketing like extra sponsorships or maybe Instagram ads with no certain results — those peripheral expenses, take them away at this point so you can focus on your marketing expenses that are really working for you, the ones that are driving leads. You may really want to be invisible in that medium but the can come later, you can pick all of them back up after you have survived the coronavirus crisis.
4. Market to your local community
I’m sure you have been all watching videos online, doing catch-up TV and watching the news, while doing this, look at the pre-roll which is the ads that are set within the broadcast that we watch online. Look at opportunities like that. Look how you might localize your spend a little bit more.
Have you really utilized your local community? There are different ways to do that. There are Facebook pages and all that sort of stuff where you can really localize. You might have been thinking Australia-wide or maybe your sales are actually in your backyard. At the moment, people are very big on supporting their local businesses, so utilize that local side.
5. Build your credibility
Offering some free services is a great way to continue and build your credibility. You could offer some free advice, and even though it’s free, it continues to build your credibility as to where you stand in the marketing space.
You can give away a free ebook, a free webinar, or perhaps a discount code if you’re in a retail space.
Whatever it is that you can just give away at this point, it may not cost you any money, but it can be really valuable because it will keep people seeing you and keep your credibility building.
Take some time to think outside your normal way of thinking when it comes to your marketing and what you’ve kind of taken for granted that works thus far but also look at new opportunities.
I think it’s time to be clever, to be analytical and really try to understand where you sit in your marketing space so you can then retract when you need to and expand when the opportunity presents itself.
At the end of all of this, when it’s all said and done, you know that people are still going to be looking for you and if your competitors do what I’m suggesting, then they will be there and you won’t be. We really need to keep front of mind as much as possible and within the confines of cash flow and abilities.
I hope that so many businesses are able to keep going and survive through this period.
