As the coronavirus pandemic continues to spread, your marketing approach and planning must adjust and shift. I have seen multiple global companies (I won’t name them) conducting business as usual and it has definitely left a bad taste in my mouth. Ignoring a global issue, and driving sales conversions during these troubled times is not only insensitive, but greedy and quite honestly, just wrong.
So what do you do? Here’s my checklist, and it includes internal “housekeeping” tasks that can help you hit the ground running when the world returns to some sense of normalcy.
Keep active on social media. If you are brick and mortar and deemed a non-essential business, it is important to speak to your followers and fans to remain top of mind. If you are an online business, then social media is a major driver of web traffic, and you need to maintain a presence
Depending on your business, this may be difficult. Let’s use a Dry Cleaners as an example. Tips and tricks on how to store your winter/summer clothing during the “off” months may be valuable as people are home and less likely to be piling up clothes that need to be dry cleaned. Think outside the box here, but you want to be a source of information, and not come across as a business solely focused on money, rather than building and maintaining relationships
Share positive messages. It’s in times of crisis that people really love and need to hear some good news, see or hear something that “hits their feelings” in a positive way. There are heartwarming stories from first responders, medical personnel and communities (while socially distancing), coming together. These stories need to be shared to not only keep morale up in tough times, but think about it, when you do re-open, I can almost guarantee a customer will come in and say, “I saw that story (video/photo) you shared on your page, that was amazing”. You want that.
Provide updates – As you know and receive information from your city, town, etc. about your business, share it. Keep your followers and fans informed.
If you have an email list, (you should, and if you do not, start collecting) now is the time to do some housekeeping and maintenance.
Start with a cleaning or “scrub”. Companies like Data Validation are really in-expensive and effective in getting rid of the junk emails you have in your list
Build an “un-engaged” list (These are the people who have not opened an email within the past 6 months). While many cookie cutter marketing agencies will advise you to remove them, I recommend offering a really high incentive deal to get them back to your site, in your store, etc.). This will be your last-ditch effort. If they respond, great, if not, then stop mailing to them!
Dive deeper – create segments based on the clickers and those who converted (bought something, called you, sent you an email) based on the content
So the goal here is to identify those who responded to a specific product or service (let’s use a landscaping company as an example, a snow removal email). If those people used your services for snow removal once, and had a good experience, they will most likely hire you again.
For those who never respond to a specific product or service, it does not necessarily mean they don’t NEED it. They may do it themselves, they may have a friend or family member with a plow, or use a different company. It’s your job to find out. (How? Contact me to find out)!
Start generating content. It is more important than ever to give back and be generous. Provide valuable content to your subscribers related to your business. Tips and tricks, how-to’s, links to videos you have created are all great example. While it is great to have a content creator on your staff, we are all small businesses, so we do what we can. Create yourself, keep costs low and remember, it doesn’t have to be perfect. We live in a world of social media where a simple smart phone video post can propel your company to new heights
Take a step back, and do some housekeeping work. Clean up, produce content, keep in touch with your customers, followers and fans. We all need to be prepared to work harder than ever to re-build business momentum.
If you are interested in having a longer conversation, and take advantage of a free, over the phone consultation to help navigate through these troubled times, contact me here.
I hope that you have found this information helpful.
Please remember that we can help stop the spread of COVID-19. Abide by government mandates. Practice social distancing, only venture out when you must.
I wish you all good health.
Gary Tiratsuyan,
President and CMO