Marketing your business in a pandemic

At the time of writing this we’re about 6 weeks into a nationwide lockdown that has disrupted almost every aspect of our lives with many people now working from home, or not at all, as a result. With 7 out of 10 businesses making use of the Government’s Job Retention Scheme and furloughing staff, it’s far from business as usual.

Often, when a business is struggling, marketing is the first area to get cut but you could end up costing your business more in the long-term when you’re trying to play catchup once this is all over.

I completely understand the temptation to cut all costs and stop everything but now isn’t the time to pull the plug altogether.

It’s a different story if cash flow is a major issue, but if you do have some budget to work with, what could you be doing during this time?

Marketing in the time of Corona

Review Your Current Efforts

Now could be the perfect opportunity to take a step back and review your current marketing strategy.

Some behaviours will go back to normal when this is over, but others may be more permanent. So when planning and preparing for the future you have to be willing to change and adapt to the new normal.

Ecommerce

Lots of companies are responding to the increase in the time we’re all spending online  by taking their business digital and creating new ecommerce stores in record time.

One example of this is a local florist and houseplant store here in Newcastle who have just added a shop to their Facebook page and are working on creating a new ecommerce store so they can continue trading.

I placed an order the day they announced they were starting to deliver and now have a few more houseplants in my growing collection so I can attest to the demand still being there, the willingness of customers to change their shopping habits, and the want to support local businesses.

PPC

Paid ads are a great option if you’re still serving customers and want to capture their attention across social media and when they’re searching for your product or service on Google.

SEO

Search engine optimisation (SEO) is more of a long-term strategy anyway so now could be a great time to focus your time on optimising your site in anticipation of the lockdown lifting and people searching for your product or service.

I’m working with a client right now to optimise their website. While they’re having to shut up shop temporarily they want to focus on this neglected part of their business and get their rankings in the best possible position so they can capture that all-important search traffic in a few months time.

Get the messaging right

Whatever you choose to do, we’re all having to think and operate in new ways right now and will have to learn and adapt our approaches.