The start of 2020 not only brought a new decade, but it also brought a new mysterious pneumonia-like virus outbreak known as the novel Coronavirus (COVID-19). With the number of cases continuously increasing daily, the World Health Organization declared the novel COVID-19 a worldwide pandemic. Millions of people worldwide have been affected in one way or another by this outbreak. With over 4.2 million+ confirmed cases around the globe, it’s apparent that the outbreak is moving quickly and spreading rapidly.
Some countries are currently experiencing a rapid rise in new cases. Meanwhile, in others, the rate of growth has slowed after leaders have instituted nationwide lockdowns, leading to a battered world economy. As a result, many businesses around the world were forced to change their working conditions and some even had to shut down. However, that doesn’t mean things will be like this forever and it doesn’t mean your marketing and creative engine has to grind to a hault. By engaging a company to help with your work on an outsourced basis, you save financially while consistently moving your marketing engine forward. Flocksy is the premier outsource creative, content and marketing platform, that engages only professional creatives. With this service, you can not only create a game plan, and utilize various marketing strategies, but also support your business while it is in a transition of any kind. Re-opening takes planning, time, effort, and the proper deployment of both inbound and outbound marketing. By utilizing a custom service on a retainer-basis, you can engineer your growth, remain consistent with your customers, and reap the rewards from your hard work.
The main goals of a successful re-opening digital marketing strategy should be to build consumer confidence through clear communications that set and manage expectations related to your business operations. Best customer communications practices include:
- Use multiple communication channels to ensure your message is widely received and reinforced.
- Create and share a FAQ document to address the most common questions regarding your health and safety practices and other important changes to your daily operations.
- Be prepared to listen and respond to customer comments and inquiries quickly.
Develop a reopening digital marketing strategy that addresses each of your online channels such as your website, your social media, online advertising, and your Google My Business profile(s).
Step 1: Optimize Your Google My Business Profile
Over 5 billion search queries are performed daily on Google search. Google specifically built its Google My Business platform to help local businesses attract customers. A properly optimized Google My Business profile is proven to help achieve a top Google search rankings and directly attract customers. Therefore, optimizing and maintaining your Google My Business profile should be pivotal part of your re-opening strategy.
Step 2: Update Your Website in Key Places
After seeing your Google My Business page and your recent Google Posts, your customers should have the confidence that your website has the same information to match. On your website, you can offer expanded content pinpointing specific operational shifts your customers may expect.
For critical operational updates or promotional offers, consider adding copy where it’s most likely to be seen. Review heatmap or clickmap data to determine what sections of your website maximize exposure of your message. Consider adding a pop-up message to capture attention and eliminate confusion. It may mean the difference between more revenue or less.
Finally, if you have specific and developing information about your business, whether this is health and safety-related or new reopening guidelines, an important digital marketing strategy tip is to create a separate page or section on your website and direct visitors to it.
This can be accomplished through a pop-up, a link on your main navigation, or a link or banner from critical pages. This grabs customers’ interest and makes sure they know all the details when it comes to your reopening. If the information is health and safety-related, this gives you the chance to make your customers feel comfortable about returning to your business as you reopen.
Step 3: Update Your Social Profiles
Today, customers expect a business’ social media to be the most accurate and up-to-date resource for operational changes. Your social media profiles may very well be the “front door” for customers online because each channel serves content in a chronological timeline. The date of your most recent update shows your level of activity to keep customers informed through your reopening.
To implement a strong digital marketing strategy, first, audit your social profiles – make sure you know what profiles represent your business online. Consider:
- Yelp
Not only is it important to be prepared, but it’s also important to learn how to adapt and make changes where necessary. As a business owner, you need to be able to respond and adjust your strategy accordingly. Flocksy can help you update your digital marketing materials quickly and affordably. They offer web development, graphic design, copywriting and video production.
Normalcy is not going to happen overnight. In fact, “normal” for you moving forward may look very different from what it looked like before the coronavirus pandemic. Your journey back to the volume of customers you had before may take time, but all your business can do is keep learning, growing, and evolving as new information becomes available. It’s important to continuously research, learn, and adapt so that your business can be the best it can be.
