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Ensure You’ll Stay Relevant

Things Will Never Be the Same

One thing is certain about the COVID-19 outbreak: things will never go back to the way they used to be. As your small business tries to survive during this crisis, you also need to consider what’s going to happen afterward. Don’t assume that once the threat to public health has passed, things will just go back to the way they’d been before the outbreak.

One key consideration is that being confined to their homes will likely lead to many customers switching to online or otherwise remote solutions.  You should not assume that post-coronavirus, they will go back to the solutions they’d used prior to the outbreak.

Interaction With Your Customers May Change

Let’s say you offer financial services. Until now, your customers may have chosen to come to your branch for personal interaction with your employees. They may have chosen these interactions over automated solutions for the perceived reliability and security of your individual, personal approach. Now, at a time of prolonged home-confinement for many, customers have gone over to automated, remote services.

After weeks or even months of use, your customers who preferred interpersonal relationships may now prefer your automated services. Before the virus outbreak, these services seemed too difficult or impersonal but now they have become second nature. If your plan was to go back to your pre-outbreak strategy once the outbreak has been contained, you might lose customers to companies that cater to their new needs. 

Be Flexible

This crisis is causing a change in your customer’s buying habits. You must be flexible and adapt your services so that they are not only useful during the outbreak, but remain the best choice once everything has calmed down. 

Communication with your customers throughout this crisis is vital in understanding their changing needs and relaying what your business is doing to meet those needs. Monitor the feedback and comments in your social media channels, use customer surveys, email response forms, and direct contact with your customers to share news and gauge their determine their satisfaction with your new solutions. 

Stay the Best Choice for Your Customer

You earned the loyalty of your customers by solving their problems and meeting their needs. If you stay flexible during this crisis, you’ll continue to stay their best choice to meet their needs when this crisis is over. 

5 Tools To Help Small Businesses During Coronavirus Crisis

5 Tools To Help Small Businesses During Coronavirus Crisis

As a small business owner, you wear a lot of hats including chief marketing officer. Do to the job right, you are going to need the best tools. Here are five of my favorites:

Hubspot CRM

Hubspot is well-known in the marketing community for the many services it offers for tracking inbound leads, the creation of webforms, pop-up forms, and email marketing campaigns. Recently they created a CRM and are offering a free version that is perfect for small businesses.

I have tried many different Customer Relationship Management (CRM) softwares over the years and have never really like any of them until I tried Hubspot’s. Even though their CRM is full featured, the free version is probably more than enough for most small businesses. It is a great way to organize all of your customers data, follow them through different stages of the sales process and even offers a vast array of automated marketing tools.

Check it out here: www.hubspot.com/products

Trello

Trello is a content management tool that many organizations use for brainstorming and strategizing content. If you need a tool to stay organized, this is the one.

The reason Trello is so appealing is that it’s free for small teams and businesses, and it provides a visual way to brainstorm and schedule content online. Additionally, it’s easy to assign multiple employees to a card, so you know who’s in charge of writing, editing, or adding CTA offers to a post.

Users can create cards and include notes on the card topic, as well as create deadlines and assign topics to certain teams. Trello facilitates collaboration and provides clarity on projects in the pipeline.

Check it out here: www.trello.com

Canva

We love Canva and use it almost every day in our small agency. Canva is a drag-and-drop design platform that allows users to create images using custom pictures, icons, shapes, and fonts from the Canva catalog. It offers an aesthetically-pleasing, simple way to design your own logos, presentations, images, or graphs based off your team’s needs.

Additionally, Canva cuts out the need for an experienced designer and enables you to create the exact visual you have in mind using their vast image collection. And the basic version, which is more than enough for most people, is free.

Check it out here: www.canva.com

Mailchimp

I love MailChimp and recommend it to anyone who wants to do any type of email marketing. MailChimp is an email marketing and social advertising tool designed to automate and orchestrate campaigns.

Unlike some email software which makes you pay for every single feature, even the free version of Mailchimp (a list of up to 2,000) has come incredible features that allow you to track the traffic garnered from your campaigns, see who opened your emails, clicked on links or even who unsubscribed.

Check it out here: www.mailchimp.com

Hootsuite

This is another indispensable tool that we use every day in our agency. Hootsuite is social media management solution that is very powerful and popular. Instead of having to make posts to all of your social media channels individually, Hootsuite allows multiple posts to be scheduled at once with developed tags and keywords.

Using Hootsuite, you can track the performance of your social media content. Hootsuite can calculate ROI, conversions, and track public conversations about your brand or specific subject matter. There used to be a free version but now Hootsuite will cost you about $30 a day, but considering all the time it will save you when posting to your social media channels, it is well worth every penny.

Check it out here: www.hootsuite.com

These digital marketing tools will only help you execute a proper strategy, but they are worthless unless you use them. So, before you download one of these programs and spend time learning how to use them, make sure that’s exactly what you plan to do- use them.

Building Your Brand by Helping Others

Building Your Brand by Helping Others

One thing is pretty clear right now, there’s no longer such a thing as ‘business as usual.’ People are much more focused on the growing pandemic than the products and services your small business offer.

We’re all spending our days either gathering as much information as we can or trying to looking for some type of entertainment so we can escape this new and terrible reality. One thing we aren’t doing is trying to find the best price on a new push lawn mower.

So How Do You Market During A Crisis?

I’ve been asked that question a lot over the last few weeks and my answer has always been, ‘that depends on what type of business or industry you’re in.” Some businesses will have to make a major shift in what they are offering to their customers or how they will deliver their services without sounding too pushy or callous.

Other businesses will be more affected by the loss of employees to illness or home quarantine, the lack of raw goods or demand for wholesale products. Both of these types of businesses will come out on the other side different not just in the way they operate but in the way they are viewed by their customers and community.

Now is the Time to Build Your Brand

You may not be able to continue your regular schedule of sales and offers during the Coronavirus crisis, but there is an opportunity to build your brand. We’ve already seen instances of large industries converting their assembly lines to manufacture medical supplies and smaller businesses volunteering to sew medical masks.

Your business may not have the time to completely shift to a new manufacturing process or build medical supplies, but you can do something. Healthcare workers would appreciate having lunch or coffee delivered to them during their shift or your business can help provide stressed parents with supplies to keep their children busy at home now that school has been cancelled.

Yes, you should do this because you are genuinely concerned with the needs of your customers but also because it is a great way to build goodwill for your brand.

What is a Brand?

It’s probably not what you think. A brand is not something you create. It’s not a nifty logo or slogan or even that high-tech office design. All of those things can contribute to a company’s brand, but they don’t embody it.

A brand is how people think about you. It’s the emotional feeling your customers have when they hear your name, see your logo, enter your business or hear your jingle. It is more complex than that, but the elemental meaning is what people think of you.

What your business does over the next few weeks and months will have a big impact on your brand.

Rethink Your Message

Review what you had planned over the next few months and see if it aligns with your customers’ current sentiments. Sending out messages without consideration to the trials and tribulations they are experiencing might make you seem insensitive. So reconsider your message now not just on how it will affect your bottom line but also how it will affect your brand.

There’s no way to be ‘top of mind’ during a pandemic but you can come out on the other side and be seen as a valued corporate citizen and brand that is caring and compassionate. And that can pay off big in the future.

Should You Be Running Social Media Ads Right Now

Should You Be Running Social Media Ads Right Now?

If social media advertising is a large part of your company’s advertising budget, you might be wondering what to do during the Coronavirus crisis. Should you keep going with ad strategy or hold off for a while? Let’s weigh both options.

Pausing Your Social Media Ads

As you might imagine, there’s not a lot of interest in your big “Buy One Get One Free Widget Sale” right now. To continue to run these types of promotions on social media not only shows that you are out of touch with your customers but is simply a waste of money. If those are the type of ads you run, pausing for a while is probably a good idea.

Running Social Ads

If you have a helpful or useful product, now is a good time to consider running social media advertising. People are at home and on social media all day so you have the opportunity to reach a huge audience. And as usage grows, the cost per exposure may actually decrease. Here are some of the products that people at home are probably purchasing right now:

  • Household supplies
  • Health Products
  • Streaming Services
  • Educational resources for parents who are now homeschooling their children
  • Food delivery
  • Alcohol
  • Timely news and information

If you’re strictly in the business of selling that don’t fit into these categories, make sure you consider the content of your organic posts. This is not the time to attempt to be funny or ironic. In most cases, you’ll only come off sounded insensitive to people’s feelings in this stressful environment.

Instead, share content that cheers on our healthcare workers and first responders, recognizes organizations in the community who are going above and beyond to help others, or content that helps them look forward to better days to come. The way your customers view your business in the future will largely depend on the way you communicate on social media during this crisis. So make sure you listen to feedback, study analytics and change what isn’t working.

How To Make Sure You Can Be Found

How To Make Sure You Can Be Found

Your Sign Looks Great

That big LED sign out in front of your business with your logo on it that flashes your daily specials in two-foot tall letters looks great. But with people at home or limiting their travel, nobody is seeing it right now. So how are you going to get your business found if they can’t see you sign

Search Traffic is up… way up.

Go ahead and admit it. A lot of the time when you’re supposed to be working at home, you’re on your phone or computer watching Youtube videos or flipping through your Instagram feed. Search traffic has increased significantly over the past few weeks and will continue to climb as we hunker down. We’re all glued to our computers and phones looking for updates within our community, looking for entertainment and ways to pass the time. We’re also shopping online. This is not the time to be hidden online. So what should your small business do right now to be found?

Build a Website

According to the US Chamber of Commerce, 46% of small businesses still don’t have a website. If there has ever been a reason to invest the time and money to build one, the Coronavirus crisis should certainly be a wakeup call. If you already have a website, you should be using Search Engine Optimization strategies (SEO) to climb to the top of Google’s search engine results page so your business can be easily found. If you don’t know how to do this, Google it or ask someone to help you.

Invest in Google Ad Words

If have a website and you’ve never invested in Google AdWords, now is a good time to consider shifting some of your marketing budget that way. Adwords is a paid auction system where you bid on certain keywords for your business. When people search using those keywords, your site will rank higher based on how much you are willing to pay for placement.

Local SEO

Local SEO is an often-forgotten part of a business’s online strategy but one of the most important. It starts with a Google My Business Paged. If you haven’t set one up for your business yet, that is also something you need to do right away. Why is this so important? Google knows where you are and when it detects that a user is searching for a place or business, it bypasses delivering results with links to websites and instead gives customers a handy list of nearby businesses, or GMB listings, that meet their search criteria. You have surely seen these but maybe didn’t realize what they were. They are the little sidebar listings that ride over on the right beside the search query results. If your business shows up over there, people are 76% more likely to click your GMB listing instead of your website. If you don’t have a Google My Business page, you can set one up very easily by clicking here.

Update Your Website and Listings

If you already have a website, a Google My Business page, social media sites, or listings in online directories, don’t forget to update your profiles to include your new hours and other changes at your business such as delivery, online shopping, etc.

Your customers are online and they’re looking for ways to spend their time and their money. Make sure they can find easily so you’ll be their choice for both.

Why The Most Important Thing You Can Do Right Now Is Communicate With Your Customers

Why The Most Important Thing You Can Do Right Now Is Communicate With Your Customers

One of the most important things you can do to keep your business afloat during the Coronavirus outbreak is communicate with your customers.

Remember your customers? The ones that used to come by every day for lunch or once a week to shop with you? They’re still around but now they’re at home, sheltering in place, or maybe during this crisis, they are just too scared to do anything but go straight to work and then straight home again. You used to see them, face to face, all the time but now, you hardly see your customers at all, if ever, because of the virus.

Your customers may think you’re closed.

Why wouldn’t they? It’s all over the news that businesses are shutting down either temporarily or even some permanently because of the Coronavirus. Why would your business be any different? Right now, one of the most important things you can do in your small business is find a way to communicate with those customers. If you’re open, don’t assume people know it. If you’re offering delivery or have put your inventory online for people to browse, don’t just assume that they will catch on. You must tell them.

Before the virus outbreak, you had the luxury of talking to your customers in person but now, you’ve got to find other ways to communicate.

You might have to learn new ways to get your message to customers, some that maybe you’re not so familiar with like email or the old fashioned telephone. Remember those? One of the first things you need to do is update your website with all the information about any new store hours or ways your taking precautions to protect your customers’ health so they will continue to do business with you.

You MUST step up your game on social media.

More and more people are tuning to social media to seek out and share news, check on their friends or shop and you need to be there communicating with them. Why is that so important right now? Your competition is all over social media right now and when this is all be over, hopefully before too long, you want those customers who you’ve spent years cultivating to continue to be loyal to you and not the person who met their needs while you stayed silent.

Yes, it’s still important to wash your hands and stay six feet away from people.

Nothing replaces the importance of protecting your health and the health of your family but during this crisis, it’s also important to remember that what you do now will determine the health of your business in the future. It you want to come out on the other side with customers who are still loyal to you and your business, you must communicate with them now and keep communicating. 

Why You Must Change Your Marketing Message Now

Why You Must Change Your Marketing Message Now

The Coronvirus (COVID-19) and subsequent calls to avoid unnecessary trips away from home and social distancing have small businesses reeling. Plain and simple, your business is going to have to adapt to this situation. So, what have you done to adapt your marketing message? Where do you even begin? It is easy to just close for a while or do what everyone else is doing and offer curbside service. But is that really what your customers want from you? And that really is the essence marketing- finding out what your customers want from you and giving it to them.

Your customers buy from you because they have a problem and you solve it.

And you do it in a unique way that makes them choose you over your competitors. They want or need something from you and you deliver it. It’s this relationship that you and your customers have that makes them loyal to your business. You don’t do what everybody else does. Now here comes the Coronavirus and suddenly this relationship changes. That’s because your customer’s needs have changed. The marketing message that you had two weeks ago proved to your customers that you were the ones who were uniquely qualified to solve their problem.

Your customers’ needs have changed, but has your marketing message changed with it?

All that stuff about the best price or a large selection may no longer matter to them because they are staying home and not going into your store. So, the challenge for you is to determine what your customers now want from you. Is it a promise to deliver what you sell to their home? Or, to take this even further, have you made an effort to protect them from interaction with your delivery staff during those deliveries? Is that they want from you? Or maybe your customer can find a solution to their need or problem online. Have you addressed this on your website- and even more importantly, have your communicated this to your customer?

Your business has changed, and your marketing has got to change with it.

So, take a moment to think about the unique ways you solve the needs and problems of your customers and how their needs have changed because of the virus restrictions and then craft a new message that solves their new problem in a unique way that no one else can. If you can do this, you’ll keep their loyalty to your business and you’ll make it through this crisis. You just have to shift.