What should your marketing strategy be during COVID-19?

The recent client survey that we sent to our clients highlighted several areas that you would like more support on. One of these was around generating sales and marketing for your business to stay visible during the downturn.  We asked our Marketing Specialist, Tanya Williams, from Digital Conversations to share some tips to help you pivot, not pause so you can generate some new business wins, in this guest blog.

 

What is happening in the world has been unexpected and it is going to force us all out of our comfort zone. However, it also provides an opportunity to improve your digital offering. With the offline world being reliant on the online world, now is your chance to ‘digitize’ your business and look at ways to run with this opportunity.  What are you waiting for?

So, what do you need to consider with your marketing in this changed environment? Let’s consider the following:

Change of strategy

Do you have an existing digital marketing strategy? If not, now is the time to develop one. If you have one, take time to review and consider how you need to tweak or pivot to meet the current opportunity. Perhaps you had plans to create an online course in 6 months and you need to make that happen much earlier. Or your content plan needs to be changed to be relevant to the current conversation. You should definitely have a strategy in place to manage what the next 3-6 months might look like. Plus be flexible and adaptable as situations continue to change.

Digitize your product

If you are operating in a traditional industry or business type, it’s time to consider how you can digitize your business. This is about taking your product knowledge and monetising it.

You have skills and expertise that people are already paying for so here is a chance to scale and offer to more people than you physically can do now.

Start with writing a list of the products or services you offer and the skills you can teach. Then consider which of these would be in demand online that your clients would pay for. What is already available in the market? How can you make your offering different?

Improve your website

If your website is old, hard to navigate or not capturing traffic now is the time to create a new one or make changes to the existing one. Your website is your brand portal and often the first place people go to get information about you and your solutions. It is more important than ever that you are giving potential clients the information they need in a timely manner. If you can’t then your competition will.

Drive traffic to your website (and capture it)

This is a simple marketing tip that you should be doing anyway. Create a lead generation piece that allows you to capture visitors to your website.  A simple PDF, checklist, quiz or 3 part video series are all simple ways to swap their email address for your valuable information. NB: these should not be about the services you provide but about solving a problem your target audience has.

Selling your product or service online

How are you currently delivering your service? Selling consulting, coaching, training & workshops via online platforms like Zoom instead of face to face allows you to offer your existing product but in a different way. Example: A friend of mine had to cancel her cooking workshops so I suggested she still do them using Zoom. She could tell her attendees what they were cooking, what ingredients they needed and they could turn it into a fun & interactive online event. She hadn’t considered that and loved the idea.

You could create a mini-course, larger online subscription course, how-to classes, workshops and training sessions…. get creative and turn your knowledge into cash. Every business has knowledge that can be digitized and monetized.

If you’d like some help & advice, I have created a Corona Digital Survival Kit. You will find it here

https://www.digitalconversations.com.au/coronavirus-marketing-resources/

 

In a different world you need to look at a different marketing approach. Experience has taught us that businesses that actively market during a downtime, not only survive but thrive on the other side. Why? They stayed visible, they kept up communication and they helped their clients through a tough time. Businesses who are taking advantage of market conditions to redefine their business offering or find new revenue streams are the ones who are going to come out of the stronger and fitter.