5 Marketing Strategies Your Business Needs to thrive in the COVID-19 Era

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       Today’s post was contributed by guest Amy Collet, creator of Bizwell.org, a website that helps professionals and entrepreneurs build and strengthen their personal brand. She is also the author of the upcoming book, You, Exemplified: The Role of Personal Branding in Your Professional Life. 

While thousands of companies have had to pause or close their businesses during the COVID-19 lockdowns, many have opened those doors back up. As exciting as this is, there are still a lot of challenges ahead.

Small businesses have been asking: How do I keep my customers safe? How can my business stay afloat if we encounter another round of lockdowns? How can I re-engage my customers now that we are back in business?

Of course, let’s not forget the most important question of all: How can I boost my business on a budget? Even with grants and stimulus checks, many businesses had to tap into their cash reserves to survive. Here are five budget-friendly marketing strategies to keep business flowing during the pandemic.

Hire marketing help.

If your business closed at all during 2020, then you may need to start your marketing efforts from scratch. Say It For You has been providing traffic-driving content and marketing strategies for businesses for years. You stand to benefit when you partner with such a professional — who can revamp your website, deliver quality blog content, kickstart your social media campaigns and engage your customers with paid social campaigns. Keep all these within a smart budget by hiring small businesses, freelancers, contractors, or interns looking to build their resumes.

Be sure your legal ducks are in a row.

A lot has changed with regard to business legality since the pandemic first hit. Sadly, some people have discovered that they weren’t able to apply for grants and loans because their businesses weren’t properly filed. Prevent that from happening to you by forming a limited liability company (LLC). Not only will that give you access to any future COVID-19 relief funds, but it also qualifies you for tax breaks and other benefits. Regulations vary from state to state, so do thorough research or enlist the help of a formation service to guide you.

Reward your loyal customers.

The customers who stuck with you or came back deserve a little extra TLC. Most business owners know that retention and loyalty are the foundation for successful business growth. Customer Service Magazine suggests doing something simple, like delivering loyalty rewards to their email inbox.

You can also go the extra mile by opening up your store for solo shopping or offer them sneak peeks of new merchandise. If you provide a service, offer how-to webinars to help them advance their own livelihoods with your insider knowledge.

Keep your customers confident.

If you have a brick-and-mortar building or meet clients face-to-face, be sure to follow all of the CDC’s guidelines for safety. While COVID-19 is not a deadly illness for most people, it can shut down entire communities if all aren’t careful and cautious. Remember that the sooner we beat this, the sooner we can get back to normal — and we all have a part to play.

Don’t give up.

Things have been hard — that’s an understatement. You may have to act differently or think broadly about what you do and how you do it, but a little creativity can go a long way. The point is to persevere. There are no easy answers these days and the business world has a long way to go to recover. You’ll have to do some long-term planning in the face of uncertainty, which is hard, but not impossible. When all else fails, turn to your customers — ask them how they are feeling and how you can better meet their needs — then go from there.

Small businesses have a long road to recovery ahead, but it’s also very hopeful. Businesses are opening back up and many are thriving from the support of their communities. Take the time to explore some of these tips to launch your business back into success.

 

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Blogging Pointers From a Sales Training Star

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“The introduction and body of your presentation might be in good shape, but don’t forget about your closing remarks,” famed sales trainer Brian Tracy cautions. “Often, your audience will remember your final words the longest.” Back when I was an investment sales professional, Brian Tracy’s tapes kept me on the right track whenever I felt discouraged. Today, I realize, many of Tracy’s tips about a speaker’s closing remarks can be applied to content marketing…

Tie up all the loose ends. Make sure you’ve hit all the points you said you would.
A big part of successful blog content writing involves getting the “pow opening line” right.. “Pow” endings tie back to the openers, bringing the post full-circle. If you’ve used a list to organize the information, use the concluding paragraph to help readers see the connection between the information you’ve provided and the products and services you have to offer.

Use inflection in your voice.
As your speech is drawing to an end, you can use your tone of voice, inflection, and pitch to signal that things are wrapping up, Tracy advises. While we are not using voice in blogging for business, we blog content writers can use typeface and bolding to draw readers’ special attention to parts of the message in each of our posts, including the closing sentence..

Summarize your main message.
The content of the opening sentence can be designed to grab readers’ attention. Two possible tactics include beginning with the conclusion, using the remainder of the blog post to “prove” the validity of the bold opening assertion. Or, if you’ve opened by posing a challenging question in the opening sentence, using the post to propose an answer, the ending can consist of restateing the question and then the answer.

Include a call to action. “Make it easy for your audience to take action by being clear and direct.”
Direct, but never abrupt, caution the authors of writtent.com caution. The CTA must be a logical extension of the blog post itself, they advise.

Around six years ago, BusinessWeek magazine had an article about corporate executives in demand as speakers, advising them to “Choose Your Podium Wisely”, accepting only those opportunities likely to result in business leads, attracting new talent to their firms, or building their company’s reputation. There, too, I found a parallel between speakers and blog content writers. I advised blog marketers to pinpoint their target customers and clients and focus the blog content on the needs of that audience.

Public speakers and content writers – we’re both out to bring the right message in the right way to the right audience!

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Blogging to Help X Do Y

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“Ultimately, your company profile matters. It can intrigue a new visitor to check out your products or services in more detail, and nudge potential customers into choosing your business over competitors,” Caroline Forsey writes. Forsey uses the Starbucks company profile as an example, incorporating the company’s mission, background story, products, and even folklore regarding its name.

All that material makes excellent fodder for website content, I thought. When it comes to blog marketing, however, I liked the very simple model for a business profile offered by Linked In sales enabler Missy Parrish: – “We help X to do Y”.

At Say It For You, we teach, blog content writers’ initial focus must be on the X. Even if your products and services are top-rate, that’s not enough to keep content fresh and make conversions happen. Your knowledge of the target audience has to influence every aspect of your blog. In fact, the very essence of content marketing is not “pitching” prospects and customers, but providing content that is truly relevant and useful to them

What about the Y? Most of the time, I explain to newbie blog content writers, at stage #1 of their search, online readers don’t know the name of the individual, the business, or the practice they want. What most consumers are likely to type into the search bar are words describing:

1.  their need
2. their problem
3. their idea of the solution to their problem
4.  a question

That means telling those visitors (the X) about the things you can help them learn and the things you can help them do (the Y) is what is most likely to lead to a next step. Always keep in in mind that, when you’re blogging, you’re talking to a friendly and interested audience about things that might help them (as opposed to forcing your message in front of people who are trying to avoid it).

What if you have more than one X and more than one Y? In fact, most business owners and professional practitioners tell me they have more than one target audience for their products and services. There may be one demographic that accounts for the majority of their customers, but they also have “outliers” who bring in just enough revenue to matter.

That is precisely the beauty of blog marketing. In fact, what you don’t want is an all-in-one marketing tool that forces a visitor to spend a long time just figuring out the 99 wonderful services your company or practice has to offer.  Each blog post will offer just enough to convey to individual searchers they’ve come to the right place (which they will have, based on the search terms they used).

Your welcome to those very visitors is the message conveyed in that very blog post: You help X’s like them to do Y!

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Blogging the What-Do-I-Do

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In creating content – whether for blogs or newsletter, we’re sometimes so close to our own project that we forget to look at it from the reader’s point of view. Humor speaker Todd Hunt must have been reading a recent Say It For You blog post about the three questions prospects ask themselves: What is it? Is it for me? What do I do? No matter what, you can’t leave that third question unanswered. “Always remember where our customer is coming from,” Hunt cautions, showing a copy of an ad from the Twin Cities Pioneer Press touting the Doyle & Debbie Show.

The show is advertised in glowing terms: Brilliant! Drop dead funny! Fall-off-the-barstool fun!
Clever, Hilarious, Wacky & Brilliant! Extended Due to Overwhelming Demand! The only problem? Nowhere is the reader told either where the show is taking place or how to buy tickets! In other words, the what-do-I-do question goes frustratingly unanswered.

“If you find that your leads and prospects aren’t taking the next step in your sales process—whether that’s buying or simply requesting more information—the problem could be a faulty or non-existent call to action,” writes Mindy Lilyquist in thebalancesmb.com. It seems obvious to let people know the next step in doing business with you, but the truth is, many business owners don’t have calls to action in their marketing. Lilyquist thinks there are two possible reasons for this omission:

  1. a belief that the prospect already knows what to do if they’re interested in buying or learning more
  2. concerns that calls to action are obnoxious and will annoy the potential customer

Calls to action don’t need to be “calls to buy – now!”. In fact, the what-do-I-do question can be answered by suggesting the reader:

  • subscribe (to the blog via an RSS feed or to a newsletter)
  • share (via social media)
  • follow (on social media)
  • download (a white paper or book)
  • click to learn more (leading to more information-intensive landing page)

    The what-do-I-do can be in short form (a link or an icon to click on) or a sentence or two, AdEspresso.com explains. “Love learning about…… and want to learn more? Subscribe now for weekly updates….”):

While Todd Hunt reminds us to remember where our customer is coming from, “What-do-I-dos” and Calls to Action offer blog readers options for “Where do I go from here?”!

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Blogging for Business’ Sake

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It’s a wonder more companies don’t do it,” Paul Gillin, B2b Content strategist, observes, referring to topical blogs. Topical blogs, Gillin says, connect with customers about topics that are mutually interesting. The purpose of a topical blog, he says is to “offer practical information that helps readers be more successful and productive, thereby associating the sponsor with that expertise.”

Serving as a “go-to” source for online readers can be a winning strategy for business owners, showcasing the blog content writer’s own expertise while offering useful, actionable, information to readers. This is in no way disingenuous, we firmly believe at Say It For You, because when people go online to search for information about a product or service, they’re aware of the fact that the providers of the information are out to capture business.

“An advertorial is ‘softly softly’ advertising,” cautions write.co.nz. The art of writing a good advertorial, write.co explains, is getting the right balance between story and sale. “An effective call to action will act as a logical extension of your blog posts, the authors of the Ivy Tech Study Power Leaders’ Guide add. “Your calls to action should never seem abrupt, or you’ll struggle to get the reaction you’d hoped.”

According to About.Com, “a Subject Matter Expert is an individual who understands a business process or area well enough to answer questions from people in other groups who are trying to help.” Individuals designated as subject matter experts (SMEs) are sought out by others interested in solving solve specific problems meeting challenges. Provide good useful information and establish trust and credibility – sales will follow,” Think eBiz Blog concludes.

The stance we’ve adopted at Say It For You in our blog content writing is this: If the information in a blog is “topical”, meaning it’s relevant to the search, helpful and useful, with no hint of a hard-sell, most readers are perfectly OK with the concept that the company providing the information would like to have them customers or clients.

Because readers understand that they are the ones in control, we believe, they have no trouble being “softly softly sold”.

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