The Importance of Communication During a Business Crisis

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This guest post was contributed by New Hampshire business advisor Kimberly Gilbert. With years of experience in health and safety consulting and a degree in Business Management, Kim Gilbert hopes to help small businesses thrive in the pandemic economy. You may visit Kim’s website at https://www.gilbertbusinessconsulting.com . 

 

 

As the leader of your business, effective and consistent communication between you and your customers is the critical factor in maintaining solid business operations. This applies not only to communications with customers during the pandemic, but also going forward in the new, unknown normal.

Here are three key points to consider when you are ensuring that your business lines of communication are open during a crisis:

Add useful content to your website
It goes without saying that, for those business owners who maintain a website, it is important to keep all contact information and hours of operation prominently displayed, as well as the business’ COVID plan if the business has direct contact with customers.

But consider going a step further and add something MORE to your site, such as a blog with helpful hints or information pertinent to your business or industry that is beneficial to your customers. This will demonstrate your full engagement and concern for your customer’s welfare, and allow real-time feedback from your target audience. A reader may comment on your suggestions, or suggest an issue that you may be able to address that you hadn’t thought of beforehand.
(If you are not able to create this type of content with the resources you have in-house, there are a host of good writers such as those at Say It For You who are ready and able to assist!)

Coordinate the use of your social media sites
Many businesses use Facebook, Instagram, Twitter or other social media sites in lieu of a website. If your company already has one or more established social media sites, be sure to keep them up to date as much as possible. Consider posting on a regular schedule, or when there are updates that should be broadcasted—change in hours, new products, new services, etc.

You do not need to overload yourself on this, but be positive and provide good content. Again, if your business lacks the resources or personnel to do this type of work, a ghost writer will be your next best friend!

As mentioned above, consistency in your message is very important. To maintain uniformity of your message across multiple platforms, consider using a Customer Relation Management (CRM) service, such as Hootsuite. Your content for multiple social media sites can be updated in one centralized spot. This will save you time!

Use your best marketing tool
According to a recent study by McKinsey & Company, email marketing is 40 times more effective than social media campaigns. This opportunity can’t be passed up, especially if you already have an established customer database. Use it to the max!

Topics to include in regular emails can range from updating your customers on your company status, offering new products or services, or just checking on your customers to see how they are faring during the pandemic. You will be amazed at the response!

An email campaign is especially useful if you have moved some (or all) of your business online, and would like to notify all of your previous and current customers.

If you haven’t already, consider using a service such as MailChimp or MailerLite to compile and grow your list. If you can’t find the time to write, again, consider hiring a ghost writer, like Say It For You, to craft a message in your voice, specific to your customer’s needs. Even better, consider sending a series of themed emails as part of an outreach campaign.

Whichever methods you chose to communicate with your customers, ensure that your message is positive, consistent, and empathetic. And always remember that there are resources to assist with the content of those messages!

 

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Blog Posts Don’t Seal – They Enable

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Will blog marketing “close” deals in the same way as face-to-face encounters between prospects and sales professionals? The answer is obviously “no”. This week’s Say It For You posts are devoted to the topic of blog marketing and its place in the overall sales process.

In the book Close the Deal, authors Sam Deep and Lyle Sussman suggest that a salesperson faced with a demanding prospect ask “What concession do you need from me to close the deal right now?” In blogging for business, of course, such a “bargaining” exchange would not be taking place between the business owner/practitioner and the reader/customer. On the other hand, one purpose of blog content is to persuade readers to act.

A very non-technical way I have of explaining the concept of blog marketing is this: Rather than running traditional ads for your brand of hats, vitamins, travel, or paint, you provide lots of information on the history of hats, on why vitamins are good for you, about exciting places to go on safari, and on the psychology of color. Consumers interested in your subject, but who never even knew your name, come to see you as a resource.

When blog readers follow your “calls to action” by phoning your business or practice, faxing in a request or an order, signing up for your newsletter, subscribing to your blog through an RSS feed, or proceeding to your shopping cart to buy your product or service, you know your blog marketing strategy is working Understand, though – it’s entirely possible that none of those things will happen at the first “meeting”.

Just as in traditional selling, you need to use blog content writing to “prove your case” by:

  • offering statistics about the problem your product or service helps solve
  • comparing your product or service with others on the market
  • providing testimonials from past and present customers and clients

Generally speaking, as I often stress when I offer Say It For You corporate blogging training, blog posts are not ads, and there should never be a hard-sell or boastful tone to the content. Blog posts are closer in nature to informative “advertorials”, positioning the company or practitioner as helpful, well-experienced, and knowledgeable.

Primarily, the blog post has to add value. Not just a promise of value if the reader converts to a buyer, but value right then and there in terms of information, skill enhancement, or a new way of looking at the topic. The best blog posts are never about yourself, your company, your services, or your products, but about why you see things the way you do.

Typically, a blog post doesn’t “seal” the deal, so much as it “enables” the deal.

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Blog Posts May Not Close the Deal, But They Deliver Sales Results

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blog marketing
“Sales professionals are expected to generate the best possible win rates for their effort,” explains Adam Wiggins in a Hubspot blog post. Choosing the right phrases to seal a deal is crucial, because the close is “the final verdict determining whether or not your efforts will amount to anything at all.” Wiggins reviews seven close types:

  1. Now or never close (some special disappearing benefit prompts an immediate decision)
  2. Summary close (reviews value and benefits)
  3. Sharp angle close (prospect asks for price reduction or add-on, but you agree only if they close today)
  4. Question close (“Does what I’m offering solve your problem?”)
  5. Assumptive close (salesperson monitors prospect’s engagement throughout, assuming a close)
  6. Takeaway close (remove a feature or service if customer balks on price)
  7. Soft close (low impact question: “If I.….would you be interested in learning more?)

Will blog marketing “close: deals in the same way as a face-to-face encounter between a prospect and a sales professional? The answer is obviously “no”. Interestingly, a second Hubspot blogger, Corey Wainwright, explains the indirect selling benefits of blogs and their place in the sales process:

  • If you’re consistently creating content that’s helpful for your target customer, it’ll help establish you as an authority in their eyes.
  • Prospects that have been reading your blog posts will typically enter the sales process more educated on your place in the market, your industry, and what you have to offer.
  • Salespeople who encounter specific questions that require in-depth explanation or a documented answer can pull from an archive of blog posts.

In the book Close the Deal, authors Sam Deep and Lyle Sussman suggest that a salesperson faced with a demanding prospect ask “What concession do you need from me to close the deal right now?”

In blogging for business, of course, such an exchange would not be taking place between the business owner/practitioner and the reader/customer. On the other hand, one purpose of the content is to persuade the reader to act. For every fact about the company or about one of its products or services, a blog post addresses prospects’ unspoken questions such as “So, is that different?”, “So, is that good for me?”

The traditional selling sequence of appointment, probing, presenting, overcoming objections, and “closing” may be totally dead, as Jeffrey Gitomer, author of The Sales Bible, asserts. What has replaced it, Gitomer says, is a step-by-step risk elimination, a process for which blogs are well-suited. Business blogs, I “preach” at Say It For You, are nothing more than extended interviews, and blog posts are an ideal vehicle for demonstrating support and concern while being persuasive in a low-key manner.

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Trivia Scores Points in Blogging for Business

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With all this staying at home dictated by the COVID-19 situation, I’m particularly grateful for the TV game show Master Minds. Of course, at Say It For You, I’ve long touted the advantages of using trivia in blogging for business. Trivia can help spark curiosity and interest in readers, at the same time helping business owners and professionals explain what they do and how they believe it should best be done.

I know I’m not alone in enjoying trivia. In fact, I have a theory about quizzes in general, which is that our curiosity is most intense when we’re testing our own knowledge. That’s why tests, games, and quizzes are hard to resist, including those incorporated into blog marketing.

I’m going to use some actual questions from the show to suggest different types of businesses or professional practices which might use those questions as a jumping-off point for their blog post message, but challenge you to find your own connections (you’re invited to share your best ideas in the comments)…

Housed in the Smithsonian, what color is the Hope Diamond?
A natural for a jeweler’s blog, this material might be used for a post about the importance of estate planning or to promote company that installs burglar alarms.

The inhabitants of which U.S. territory drive on the left side of the road? (Virgin Islands)
Just for starters, this piece of trivia could be used to promote driving lessons or auto sales.

When putting on your shoes, where are you most likely to see an aglet? (laces)
This one’s a natural for a shoe merchant or designer, but could be used for a sports equipment company as well.

If you pour a handful of salt into a glass of water, what happens to the water level? (stays the same)
This tidbit might be used to promote cookbooks or cooking equipment.

What national park contains the tallest peak in North America? (Denali in Alaska)
A car company or travel agency could definitely use that one for a blog Q&A.

Which poisonous plant was, in the Middle Ages, thought to utter a shriek when pulled from the ground? (mandrake)
This would be perfect for a garden shop blog, but could be used by a landscaper or grounds maintenance company.

For me, watching those episodes of Master Mind has reinforced the importance of trivia in blog content writing. Trivia allows readers to have the fun testing their own knowledge, while showcasing the expertise of the business owner or practitioner.

When it comes to using trivia to spice up blog content, as Ben Bailey (host of another of my favorite trivia quiz shows) might ask – “You in?”

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In Blogging for Business, Trivia is Hardly Trivial

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When it comes to blogging for business, trivia is hardly a trivial matter. There are four basic ways in which trivia can be used as blog content writing tools:

  • defining basic terminology
  • sparking curiosity about the subject
  • putting modern-day practices and beliefs into perspective
  • explaining why the business owner or practitioner chooses to operate in a certain way

Albert Jack’s book, Red Herrings & White Elephants, traces the origins of phrases we use every day. (In this post, I’m going to suggest ways in which different types of businesses or practices might use pieces of trivia, but I challenge content writers to come up with their own ideas as well.) Needless to say, finding ideas for blog posts isn’t all about trivia – the trivia are just jumping-off points for the message.

If something “goes by the board”, it means it is cast aside and lost. On the old wooden ships, author Jack explains, the “board” was the side of the boat, and anything falling off the ship and lost forever had “gone by the board”.
This idiom is perfect for the blog content of any practice or business that wants to emphasize its attention to detail, showing how they make sure to clean up after the job and tie up all the “loose ends”.

To “have someone over a barrel” means that person is at the mercy of third parties and cannot change the circumstances surrounding them. The saying originated in medieval Britain, where it was standard practice to drape a drowning person face down over a barrel to try to clear their lungs of water. Since the victim was totally reliant on other people to determine their fate, when you are “over a barrel” you feel helpless to improve your situation.
This saying would be perfect for a personal injury attorney fighting for people who have been wronged by others, or perhaps for a financial advisor who helps people gain control over their debts.

A “dark horse” is something of unknown quantity or somebody whose abilities are not yet fully known but soon will be. The expression comes from the novel The Young Duke, published in 1831, in which the two favorites in a horse race are beaten by a a relatively unknown third horse.
One obvious application for this expression would be an investment company blog, but the concept could apply to the employee training and hiring field as well.

To “keep something at bay”, such as danger or illness, means to fend it off. In ancient times, Jack explains, the bay tree was thought to posses protective powers.
As a content writer, I can see this expression being used for a blog on healthy lifestyles (Vitamins? Cooking? Exercise?).

Fact is, when I’m offering business blogging assistance, I talk about the need to create as much fresh material as possible. In blogs, content needs to inform, educate, and entertain. While trivia may be just one of many tools content writers can use to introduce interest and variety, I’ve found that trivia are hardly “trivial” when it comes to blog marketing!.

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