It is an extremely difficult and uncertain time for businesses, families and individuals across the world, facing unprecedented circumstances and having to react very quickly to change.
All businesses are impacted in some way and there is no magic answer to protect your business from this, the effects will be felt far and wide but there are things you can do to focus your attention and strengthen your business going forward.
Move your business online
This is the first question to ask yourself. Are there any parts of your business that you can safely deliver online?
For some businesses, they will be able to move elements of their services online and continue to generate income, but even if this is not possible for you then there is so much that you can do during this time to support your business through online channels and strengthen your online position and business.
Now is the time to accept the things we can’t change. This doesn’t make it easy but for now, we are where we are and must find a way to adapt and focus on what we can for the next few months.
Get your business into the strongest possible position for when ‘normality’ resumes!
Why digital marketing?
Put simply, we are all at home, unable to go out and the one thing we have unlimited access to is the internet! Arguably the most important place your business can be right now is online – you can still reach your audience and customers, even if they can’t physically come to you right now.
Just some of the great things about digital marketing:
Even if you can’t generate income, you can be building brand awareness, engagement, customer loyalty, reputation
Engagement with loyal customers, but also your brand may be exposed to new audiences who are online in places that they may not normally be, looking for services/products that they might not usually
Very cost effective and quick way of reaching your audience – cashflow is tight but you don’t need a big budget even if you choose to do some online ads
Super targeted – you can reach exactly who you want and need to!
Great analytics – easy to see what works and what doesn’t, if something doesn’t work then you can stop it immediately. Even better, if something works well then do it more
So, what can you focus on?
1. Start with your audience
Always start with your audience – who are they, where are they, what are their issues and how can you solve them? If you haven’t done customer profiling before then now is definitely the time. If you have, go back, revisit it and re-evaluate – most likely your audience will be behaving slightly differently right now and you may also be able to identify new audiences for your business.
What you want is to stay in their mind and provide value and support through a difficult time.
2. Social media
This kind of goes without say – but where have you been spending a lot of your time recently? On social media!
I am not normally someone who spends a great deal of time on social media but the last few weeks my usage has increased significantly. People need and want information and they want to continue to feel connected to others and the big wide world!
You might need to shift your social media strategy – perhaps right now the goal isn’t to drive sales, but to increase website traffic and build an email list, or to focus on building genuine connection and engagement with your audience.
Be there, be consistent and listen to what your audience want & need right now. That will be different for everyone. Above all be sensitive – it’s a tough time and you need to make sure that your content doesn’t upset anyone – we are all human and in this together!
3. Reviewing and updating your website
When is the last time you looked at your website analytics – like properly looked? How much traffic does your website get and where from? Are there’s users engaged with your content? If not, why not?
Spend some time looking at your key user journeys – for example if certain pages have a high bounce rate look at why this might be and make changes to reduce this.
Is your call to action clear enough? Again it might be a little different right now so you might need to make some updates.
It’s a great time to make visual updates to your website – update all those out of date images, improve your content and start writing some of that high quality blog content you have been meaning to do!
4. SEO updates
Is your website visible in search results and can your customers find you? Now is a good time to make improvements and get yourself as visible as possible.
You could spend some time on the following:
Review your website using a free tool such as Screaming Frog
Do some keyword research and optimise your website for your key terms - you might even find some new keywords or search terms!
Get blogging
Link building
5. PPC
What can you offer your audience at the moment? Again, think outside the box – if you think of something you can offer them then PPC is a great way to get fast and immediate traffic to your website (SEO is a longer game).
If you already use PPC, will there be any changes in the terms that people are using to look for your services? Your keyword research will come in handy again here!
6. Building an email list
All of the above should help you to keep driving traffic to your website, but what do you want them to do when they get there? Your service might currently be pretty obsolete at the moment or sales might be dwindling BUT why not focus on building an email subscriber list? You can then communicate with and support these people regularly while this situation continues, then hopefully they become a customer when it’s all over!
It’s a hard time – there’s no denying it but it’s also a great time to work on building relationships with your customers and you might even discover new audiences.
Take any opportunity you can to support other businesses and always be empathetic and sensitive online – we are all a little worried right now and need some support.
Take care everyone and stay home.