Marketing Ideas To Help Minimise The Impact Of Covid-19 And Accelerate Your Business Recovery

Challenging times create chances to show you care for your clients and network. 

The key is giving, giving, giving with no desire to receive. Your clients will remember this when it is entirely over – and this shall soon pass! 

In light of that, I challenge you to ask yourself these questions; 

1. How might I support our clients? 
2. What do they need from me at the present time (regardless of whether they are paying for it or not!)? 
3. Would I be able to transform this short term challenge into long term success? 
4. What will my competitors do? Retreat or advance? 
5. Are there any opportunities that will emerge? 
6. What would I be able to do to soften the situation'? 
7. How can I be prepared to get down to business when the recuperation starts? 

Identify Opportunities 

For some organizations and ventures, the virus will open doors to genuine opportunities. (and not only hand sanitizers and face mask) 

Less foot traffic in strip malls can mean increasingly online traffic for web-based business(e-commerce). And we’ve seen medical and home entertainment products surging for clients.

Regardless of whether these opportunities are not immediately obvious for your business, consider the ideas below. 

Think Strategically

It's very simple on occasions like these to get going and start "doing" without "thinking". Truth be told, that is exactly the meaning of panic: 

Uncontrolled fear or uneasiness, often causing wildly unthinking behaviors.

I urge you to slow down, get away from your PC screen, get a notepad and begin thinking. Take ten and make yourself a cup of coffee or a glass of juice as your preference.. Begin strategizing by responding to the questions mentioned above. 

There might be less foot traffic, however, opportunity online will grow 

There's already less foot traffic in retail locations due to the lockdown - so online retailers must capitalize.

Ensure you're bulk messaging and educating your customers that it is business as usual, the warehouse is full and your online store (or online service offering) is prepared for business. 

Is there any opportunity for you to run a limited-time promotion campaign? For example, free transportation or X% off to lure people to spend? 

Continue advertising to assert your place in the market except your company is Coca Cola

We've just observed a great deal of CPMs dropping because of increased usage in social media. Some companies have dropped their advertisement cost by 40%  in the last few weeks.

Many of your competitors will be dropping their advertising spend - thereby leaving the doorway wide open to increase your piece of the pie (market share). You have a chance to build your brand awareness over this time. 

Keep those marketing doors open! 

As mentioned above  - retreating marketing  (or as the case may be recession) provides all organizations with a chance to increase market share if they are smart.. Slowing down marketing activities in a declining market just quickens the drop off in leads or deals. If you can, think of maintaining or even increasing your budget to capitalize on this opportunity.

Increase  your Social media posting 

A lot of people are going to be consuming social media during this time. That presents the chance to grow your following and show genuine care for present and future clients. How can you use your unique knowledge/products/insights to support or inform them at this challenging time? 

Grow your top of funnel audience

In case you're running a social media or digital advertising campaign, now is the time to grow your "top of the channel" remarketing audiences.

By keeping brand or educational marketing active, you’re continuing to grow the size of your remarketing audience. You’re also demonstrating to existing and future clients that you’re a business that takes your commitment to customers seriously.

Once the recovery starts to come, you can target these same engaged people with “bottom of funnel” sales messages to bring sales through the door

Identify in-demand products and services 

Will any of your products and services be more in demand than expected? Can you increase the promotion of these with Google, social media, or email? Do your clients know you have them? 

If you’re in health consulting, medical suppliers, DIY materials, cleaning and domestic products, food delivery, home entertainment, online education and so on - opportunities might actually increase. 

If you’re a face-to-face business who now offers remote meetings and services - now is the time to promote the offering before your competitors catch up.

Ensure customers know you are still open for business 

In case you're as still open for business as usual (or even somewhat changed) let your clients know ASAP. Ensure you're yelling it from every one of your correspondences channels, for example, 

Site landing page - update your landing page so it's upfront. It might even merit adding key data to your header. 

Blog entry/news story posts - If conceivable, distribute an article to refresh customers on how your business is taking care of the present circumstance and how it might affect them. 

Social media posts and promotions - pin them at the highest point of your feed and post routinely 

Email existing customers - in case you're an online business, keep them refreshed on transportation and stock levels. If you’re a service-provider, update your customers on your current hygiene practices or whether remote-meetings are possible. 

Update Google Ads copy - if your business can offer remote meetings, promote this in your copy. Encourage as many people to visit your site as possible - you can potentially use this audience in remarketing campaigns in the future. 

Google My Business - if your business has reduced opening hours, you can update your profile with posts talking about what you’re doing in light of this event. If you are a local business it is more imperative than ever to be posting regularly on Google My Business!

Promote virtual meetings, consultations or training 

In the event that your business usually depends on seeing your clients face to face, think about changing to virtual consultations. 

The sooner you promote this type of service, the less customer drop off you’ll see. 

On the other side, this could give an extra income stream to your business if your target segment is at home and ready to learn more - online training has seen an increase in demand during this time.

Show ‘business as usual’ on social media

Ramp up your social media (and email) to influence the crowd - if your customers see other customers behaving as normal, it can encourage them to do the same.

Can you use social media to show ‘normal behaviour’. For retailers, it could mean posting images of you packing and posting items to customers as normal.

Use positive messaging

In a time where panic is rife due to the media, now is an important time to show support for your customer base and community, while still adhering to the ongoing developments and restrictions being enforced.

Being careful with your messaging is critical - you need to be positive but also respectful of current circumstances.

Build quality content

As we mentioned above, we expect to see more people on the internet and reading content, so this is the perfect time for us to ramp up your content marketing by building good quality blog posts, creating new pages, e-books or infographics to entice your audience to land on your website and stay there!

Target clients with secure livelihoods 

Businesses can look to better optimize their advertising efforts and messaging to those who have more secure incomes - government positions, police, health care workers, etc.

For B2B companies, can you target stable/large company opportunities such as Government, Mining or service providers to these types of businesses? This is a way to ensure ongoing revenue for your business in a time of uncertainty.

Be flexible on payment arrangements

Provide flexible arrangements for customers. Not every business will have the ability to do this but it’s important your business works as hard as possible to retain any income already received from customers to minimize the losses.

Be 100% ready for recovery

Be ready with marketing creative

No one knows how long the pandemic will last for. The more drastic that Government actions are, the faster the recovery will happen.

In light of this, you should make sure all your marketing creative is ready so you can hit the ground running. Don’t be caught waiting for days or weeks for graphic design or videos to be created.

Think:

• Email campaigns/sequences of emails
• Facebook and Instagram ad creative
• Google search ads
• Google display ads
• Videos

Have your key messages ready to go

When the recovery begins, what sort of messaging or calls to action can you use to bring customers back in?

Have your key messages ready:

• We’re back
• We’re back to full capacity
• Appointments available
• Stock available 
• Business as usual sale
• Back to normal sale