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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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In Blogging for Business, the Operative Word Isn’t “Anyone”!

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“What do you notice when you visit a model home in a new development? Often you will find wonderfully furnished and decorated rooms that anyone could live in.” So begins an article I received the other day from my realtor friend Gadi Boukai, stressing that “the operative word is ‘anyone’”. Professionals who set up a model home make it anonymous for a reason, the article goes on to explain. They want buyers to view it as their potential home, not someone else’s. Those professionals know – based on decades of experience, that this strategy helps sell houses faster and at a better price.

Interesting, because, at Say It For You, we realize that with blog content writing, the exact opposite might be the case. Your blog can’t be all things to all people, any more than your business can be all things to everybody.  The blog must be targeted towards the specific type of customers you want and who are most likely to want to do business with you.  Everything about your blog should be tailor-made for that customer – the words you use, how technical you get, how sophisticated your approach, the title of each blog entry – all of it.

The home viewers my friend Gadi is describing are clearly already interested in buying a home; they know what overall indoor and outdoor space and amenity needs they have, and they are looking to “match” those needs with the home they’re viewing. The “blanker’ the canvas, the easier it will be for that “match” to take place. Similarly, the only prospects who are likely to visit your blog are those searching for information on precisely what you sell, what you know, and what you know how to do.

The difference is, the blog content needs to ‘hit the spot” with visitors in a very targeted and individual way, differentiating your products or services from those offered by your competitors. With millions of other blogs out there for searchers to find, it’s only highly specific evidence that will resonate with the right visitors. Not only is having a focused topic important in each blog post, writing content with a specific audience in mind (rather than appealing to anyone) will make the difference between success and failure.

Gadi’s customers need to “see themselves” living in the home they’re touring, making their own mental and emotional “match” with those surroundings. With blog visitors, it’s the same, yet different. Your website content and blog posts can demonstrate that you’re offering all the right products and services, the ones your online visitors need. Despite that, you might still be experiencing a very high “bounce rate”, meaning that visitors to your blog are thinking to themselves “No, that’s not what I meant!” As part of their visit to your site, you have to appropriately signal to your visitor that you understand, serve, and most important, understand the situations and challenges they have faced in prior situations of  using your type of product or service.

Home buyers (at least it was that way pre-COVID-19!) are typically are left to roam the home on their own, “seeing” if this is the place for them. In contrast, with blog marketing, the content needs to put out targeted ‘prompts”. The business owner or professional practitioner is in essence telling the visitor -“To me, you’re not just anyone – I see you. I really see you!”

 

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Business Blogging – Staying Silent is the Wrong Choice

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“The COVID19 pandemic has put much of the world on pause. Blogging shouldn’t be one of them, writes Manish Dudharejia in the Search Engine Journal. Staying slilent is the wrong choice. Dudharejia names several reasons why:

  • People are on their digital devices more than ever now.
  • You have an opportunity to produce messaging that is not about anxiety-inducing topics.
  • You have the chance to discuss what your brand is doing to keep people safe.
  • Continuous communication and support builds customer trust and loyalty.
  • You have the chance to gain followers, even if they are not yet buyers.

“Customers want to know that you are surviving this new normal with them, so taking your customers along for the ride through various outlets of online marketing will ensure you have the support to get to and through these difficult times,” explains Makenzie Walker of topfloortech.com. “Positivity and reassurance are a business’ best friends,” Walker adds.

As a business owner myself, I loved the viewpoint of Karen Lombardo of Put Another Way.
Sales mentality, she says, can be divided into two categories: farming and hunting. Hunters find opportunities to close business; farmers engage with clients and forge and strengthen relationships. “The hat to wear in today’s environment,” Lombardo advises, “is the farmer.” Consistent communication is key right now. You have valuable knowledge and expertise. Put it out there, she says.

Way back in 2009, Tony Fannin, president of BE Branded, commented on the fact that in the economic environment of that time, businesses were cutting back their marketing and advertising. In effect what those business owners were saying, Fannin quipped, is “Let’s put less gas in the car so we can drive further and save money!” Without consistent reminders, brands are easily forgotten, he warned.

At Say It For You, we’re acutely conscious of the fact that it’s never been more important for brands to show purpose, going from information-dispensing to offering perspective on issues related to both the search topic and the times in which we’re living.

“May you live in interesting times” is a translation of a traditional Chinese curse, and we are certainly living in interesting times now. One thing’s for certain when it comes to business blogging – staying silent is the wrong choice!

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Choosing the Best Blog Marketing Evidence is Crucial

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In the Complete Middle School Study Guide, students are asked to read a story by Joshua Slocum called “Sailing Along Around the World”, and then to choose ONE piece of evidence, from the story which makes Samblich seem most generous:

Samblich was greatly interested in my voyage, and after giving me the
tacks he put on board bags of biscuits and a large quantity of smoked
venison. He declared that my bread, which was ordinary sea-biscuits and
easily broken, was not nutritious as his, which was so hard that I could
break it only with a stout blog from a maul. Then he gave me, from his own
sloop, a compass which was certainly better than mind, and offered to
unbend her mainsail for me if I would accept it. Last of all, this large-hearted
man brought out a bottle of Fuegian gold-dust from a placed where it had
been cashed and begged me to help myself from it, for use farther along
on the voyage.

The point of the lesson was for students to learn the difference between explicit evidence (things explicitly stated in the text) and implicit or implied evidence. “Most nonfiction texts are full of evidence, the author explains, but choosing the BEST evidence is crucial, selecting the details “that will get the point across quickly and convincingly.”

At Say it For You, we realize that’s precisely the rule blog content writers ought to follow. Having a focused topic is important in any blog post, but have a specific audience in mind and choosing the best evidence for that target audience is crucial. As I tell newbie blog content writers, everything about your blog should be tailor-made for that customer – the words you use, how technical you get, how sophisticated your approach, the title of each blog entry – all of it.

And since we are ghostwriters hired by clients to tell their story online to their target audiences, we need to do intensive research, as well as taking guidance from the client’s experience and expertise. But with millions of other blogs out there for searchers to find, it’s specific evidence that will resonate with the right audience. What kinds of evidence can transform your blog into a powerhouse?  Fellow blogger Michel Fortin believes that mamy blogs miss the mark due to lack of proof.

Fortin lists several kinds of proof that may be used in blog marketing:

  • Factual proof:  statistics about the problem your product or service helps solve
  • Reverse proof: comparing your product or service with others that are on the market
  • Credentializing proof: years of experience, degrees, newspaper articles written by or about the business owner or practitioner
  • Evidential proof: clinical trial results, testimonials

Choosing the best blog marketing evidence is crucial!

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Unleash the Combined Power of Statistics and Stories in Your Blog

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“Every 55 seconds someone in the US develops the disease,” Jason Abady, community engagement manager for the Central Ohio Alzheimer’s Association, let our audience know. In fact, I thought later, Abady had used this one simple but startling statistic to engage his audience.

Abady’s presentation confirmed a long-held belief of mine: nothing speaks quite as loud as numbers. In teaching business owners and professional practitioners how to create content for blog posts, I stress the power of using statistics in blogs.

  • Statistics can serve as myth-busters, dispelling false impressions people may have regarding your industry.
  • Statistics grab visitors’ attention.
  • Statistics can be used demonstrate the extent of a problem (just as Jason Abady did in his talk), opening the door for your to show how you help solve that very type of problem.

Statistics relate to the theory of social proof, meaning that, as humans, we are more willing to do something if we see other people doing it. (That, I suspect, is what is in play with the Alzheimer’s Walk, which brings numbers of people together in an activity, rather than merely soliciting individual donations.)

There’s another side to this story, based on my own experience at Say It For You, training blog content writers and working with business owners and professional practitioners: Statistics alone, although powerful, are not enough to create positive results in a marketing blog. True, what blogging does best is “deliver” to blog sites customers who are already interested in the product or service provided by that practice, business, or organization. The blog content assures readers they are not alone in their need for solutions to their medical, financial, or personal challenges.

As John Pullinger observes in the Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, “Statistics provides a special kind of understanding that enables well-informed decisions. As citizens and consumers we are faced with an array of choices. Statistics can help us to choose well.” However, as blog marketers, it’s important for us to remember that the first choice that people make when presented with a statistic, is whether to take action at all.

Numbers give us quantifiable information, but when it comes to communicating how things can actually impact readers’ real lives, some form of humanizing or grounding the data is often effective, Barnard Marr explains in Forbes.

One way to boost the power of a statistic is to turn it into a story. The story then becomes a call to action for readers. In fact, one big, big part of providing business blogging assistance is helping business owners formulate stories. Online visitors to your blog want to feel you understand them and their needs, and the story enhances the potential value (to them) of your product or service. In his presentation, Jason Abady did exactly that, sharing the story of his own grandfather as an Alzheimer’s patient.

Unleash the combined power of startling statistics and inspiring stories in your blog!

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