The coronavirus pandemic and your marketing plans: what happens now?

As we are all aware, our daily lives have been turned upside-down and sideways due to COVID-19. As terms like social distancing, home isolation and flattening the curve quickly become second-nature, all businesses are being forced to make some really tough decisions. So what does this mean for your business and marketing initiatives as the world as we know it is slowly starting to grind to an economic halt?

Many businesses have had to take a closer look to see if there are any tools in their arsenal that can be used to continue delivering products and services where possible, and in the most cost-effective way. It’s no secret, some tough calls are going to have to be made, but Soulpepper is here to show you a few digital marketing techniques to help your business power through Hurricane Corona and counter some of the challenges that are likely to be faced by all at this time.

1. Retain your existing customer base

Out of sight, out of mind. Simple and oh-so-true even in a business context. Coronavirus aside for a moment, if you do not keep in touch with your clients on a regular basis, you risk losing them to competitors who are making more of an effort to communicate during this time. Now with everything going on in the world, it is of utmost importance to remember that it is usually cheaper to retain an existing client than acquire a new one.

Be Social

One simple and low-cost way to communicate with your client base is by getting a lot more social and engaging in timely conversations with your existing audience on platforms such as LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook.

Getting more social online is a great opportunity for all businesses at this time. With physical social distancing being encouraged for all, social media platforms are seeing an influx of visitors, both for boredom busting, and to research products and services that are available to them.

Use this channel as an opportunity to listen to your customers, understand your market a lot more and gain valuable insights on how you can improve your business going forward.

Get Creative

Content production and marketing automation is another way to still keep in touch with clients even when you can’t be in the same space with them in real-time.

Along with being more active on social media as a business, creating content that is relevant and provides value to your client base should be an area of focus at the moment and will differentiate you from your competitors. Brainstorm blog topics and compile information that can help your clients at this time. Keep an eye out for relevant updates in your industry that you can share. You can then plan a regular schedule of communication using personalization and automation so you can get on with working on your business while your client base still knows they’re being considered.

2. Get even more visible to potential clients

You may have seen your, organic traffic (site visitors who clicked on your free Google search listing) dip over the last month, but that doesn’t mean that you should give up and watch your empire crumble. Our previous point of getting more social and creating relevant and contextualized messages will go a long way to building brand awareness and gain visibility out on these online streets.

The first place to start is fine-tuning your keyword research. ow, more than ever, your business should target specific searches in order to drive traffic to your website. As some people may be looking for new service providers that are easily accessible or just alternative sources of information to aid their purchasing decisions, there’s an opportunity to make sure your website shows up for the right queries.

Other than playing around with your Keyword Planner, content creation is the name of the game – update and revitalize your existing content (e.g. blog posts, newsletters, press releases, video content) so that you are sure that it still adds value to your potential client’s needs. This will help in improving your search ranking.

3. Focus on driving conversions

Conversion rate optimization is another low-cost, high-impact digital marketing technique that can be used to help your business in the wake of this pandemic. This means once you’ve successfully driven traffic to your website, you’ll now be able to convert these visitors into customers. How does one achieve this?

Tell Your Story

Again, leverage your social media platforms to continue to share positive success stories about your business and your impact on the community you serve. Your curated reviews and recommendations should feature prominently on these social pages and your website so that all visitors get a glimpse of how you do business.

Tune Your Website

Small incremental changes to the online user experience will make a huge difference in delivering the conversions you’re after. Tweaks and improvements to your website to make it user-friendly and speed up the page load time will aid in keeping website visitors on your individual pages for longer, and in turn, promote conversions.

4. Measure, measure, measure!

The major advantage of digital marketing, over traditional avenues such as billboards or TV, is that it is measurable. Marketing specialists are able to report with precision on which marketing activity generated the highest engagement and greatest number of quality leads – and at what expense. This way, you as a business are looped in on your return on investment (ROI) and can refine your marketing strategy on the fly.

As we are in uncharted waters with COVID-19 and its social and economic impact, marketers and businesses alike still have to be accountable to each other so as to not pour money down the drain unnecessarily. Higher investments in web marketing to boost sales, website traffic, generate new leads all need to be managed and measured accordingly.

Define your key performance indicators, set up your goals properly, configure and monitor your Google Analytics and Search Console so that you can make the necessary changes to your marketing strategies in a timely manner.

If this pandemic has forced your business to tighten up the purse strings for the foreseeable future, knowing which online marketing technique is working, how it is working and why it should be of utmost importance so that you can make appropriate decisions about investing your cash.

These are crazy times indeed, but strengthening your focus on digital marketing will enable you to maintain some normality and give you a competitive edge over competitors who may be slow to act. If you need any help redefining your marketing campaigns in the wake of this pandemic or are seeking new ways to double down and improve your company’s online presence during this time, our digital marketing strategists are only a phone call away and ready to assist.