The COVID-19 lockdown has dealt a punishing blow to businesses of all shapes and sizes around the world. It has forced them to operate in new ways, and caused them to transform their digital infrastructures to facilitate remote working. At a time when consumer confidence is at an all-time low, it seems as though businesses have to fight for every sale and every customer. It can feel as though your customers are a million miles away from you and that your best efforts aren’t enough to engage them and buoy their interest in your brand.
But if you think that you can’t engage your customers while under lockdown, think again! For most small businesses, engaging your audience is as simple as doubling down on marketing best practices and taking stock of what makes your relationship with your customers special. As a small business, you enjoy a great relationship with your customer- giving them a level of individual care and dedication that they simply don’t get from the bigger brands.
If they happen to have forgotten that amidst the noise and the chaos of the last few weeks, it’s up to you to remind them. Here are some great ways to take your message to them on their own turf and help your business to thrive despite the pandemic.
Maximise your ROI for social media marketing.
Social media marketing has never been more important to small businesses. People are turning to social media to keep up to date with the latest news and check in on their friends during this global pandemic. According to Statista, social media use in the US alone has climbed exponentially in April 2020. Use of both YouTube and Facebook is expected to rise by over 60%.
That’s a whole lot of eyes that could be drawn to your brand and your products or services. The great thing about social media marketing is that it delivers highly targeted ads so that your marketing content is only seen by the kind of user profiles that match with your target audience. That said, if using paid ads gave a consistently high ROI, everybody would be using them. To get the most out of your social media ad spend, you may want to ally yourself with a social media agency. They can help you get the most for your money when it comes to ads and help you to capitalise on the momentum they generate with more organic methods of generating leads and customers. Which brings us to…
Create content marketing materials that add value.
Content marketing was an important weapon in any brand’s digital marketing arsenal before the coronavirus outbreak. It’s even more important now.
People are feeling vulnerable, isolated and unsure. They need answers, and they’re turning to online sources to provide them. If you can demonstrate an ability to give them the satisfactory answers they crave, this can go a long way towards building trust in your brand.
Content marketing gives you an opportunity to showcase your knowledge, experience and expertise and thus build value and trust in your brand. Whatever content you create, however, you need to approach it from the audience’s perspective. This is about generating value for them, rather than promoting yourself. This isn’t about bombarding your target audience with thinly veiled ads. This is about giving them something useful for free… which we could all use a little more of right now. So whatever content you create make sure it helps the user sole a problem or address an issue they’re facing in their lives right now. The content can take many forms including;
Blogs and vlogs – A great way to stay in touch with your audience
Tutorials and infographics – Helpful, relevant and easy to consume content
Webinars – Great for building a relationship with your customers and helping them to feel close to you.
Soliciting User Generated Content – Why not encourage your target audience and customers to send you their own content? It’s a great way to help them feel like a part of your brand and there are lots of examples where this has worked wonders.
Compose emails that are unignorable.
Marketing emails are a great way to stay in touch with customers, and entice those who you haven’t seen in a while to come back to you. However, it’s fair to say that the average inbox is a busy place. Many of your customers will receive marketing emails on a regular basis. Most, if not all, of which will end up in the spam folder.
It’s up to you to create emails which are unignorable. And that doesn’t just mean engaging copy and a catchy subject line. It means giving them an incentive to open the email. A discount voucher is good. A unique, single-use discount voucher that delivers an offer based on their purchase history or actions taken on your website is better. Investing in a platform that allows you to do this can hugely increase your conversion rates from email marketing.
Collaborate with other brands.
Not only can you maintain your audience while the world is under lockdown, you can actively grow it! Now is a great time to reach out to other non-competing brands and talk about opportunities to collaborate. It could mean something as simple as appearing on their podcast or YouTube channel as a guest speaker. Or it could result in something really exciting like working on a co-branded product together.
Either way, you have a great opportunity to introduce your brand to another company’s loyal customers, create positive associations and build trust.
Incentivise reviews and boost your social proof.
Finally, speaking of trust, now is the time to start building as much as you can online. Consumers are slow to trust and many have limited income. They’re more likely to carry out online research even when it comes to small purchases. Make sure that they see all the right things by incentivising your customers to leave reviews for you on Google, Trustpilot and the like. Consumers trust the word of other consumers more than they trust the word of brands themselves.
