ephas
11 September 2020
The COVID-19 pandemic seems to be the mother of all pandemics. So much so that all around businesses have been affected.
The changing landscape begs a different strategy that adapts well to the current situation.
Start by understanding challenges
It’s not you alone who as a business is facing challenges. Your customers too are facing a number of challenges during this pandemic.
Before you do something, start by thinking about the problems you can discover and solve for customers.
You need to be able to correctly communicate that.
First understand the current business climate. Instead of trying and selling a particular group of items, start by discovering if the items you clearly want to sell so much are in demand by customers.
The market understanding helps you develop a clear cut information about what should change and what you need to do regarding your strategy. You should also survey customers and quantify the feedback they are giving you.
Once you are aware of these problems create a clear cut strategy regarding what you can do next.
Change communication strategy with new customers
During this period of pandemic you need to gear your business up in a manner that it survives the pandemic. Instead of manufacturing and selling products pre pandemic there’s no problem in shifting gears toward something you like, love and enjoy.
The communication should be around customers who are going to resonate with the new line of thinking.
Customer segmentation is key
The key to survival in this age is proper customer segmentation.
Companies sketch up new personas based on the kind of people they regularly have communication and sales with. Don’t just sketch in demographic information. Create customer profiles based on other information like issues they are facing and things of that nature.
Some customers are now more concerned about product pricing and their ability to pay than anything else. So factor in all that before you start thinking of anything else.
Communicate changes
Pandemic has forced companies to change schedules and delivery of products. So you need to communicate changes to customers. When offering new items, provide alternate delivery solutions and also change the hours you are available.
With this customers can hear the message across digital channels.
They manage expectations well as well.
Create valuable content
If no other marketing is working, content will work. It’s also an inexpensive form of reaching out to customers.
Businesses have more than one opportunity to reach out to customers in this pandemic and that is through content. Tell stories and build healthy relationships. This way you can think of creating and channeling content around your products and tell people a great story as well.
With your content lend your focus to creating content around providing answers to specific questions people might have. This will get you more targeted traffic to the site and much higher conversions too. Create a post for the most common keywords you want people to use to discover your website say reviews or in-depth articles, says Systeme.io.
Post on social media. Take the blurb of Twitter and post it to facebook and so on. In addition, you could post qr codes on social media too. Record and add videos to YouTube.
Optimize for more channels
WIth consistent messaging you need to ensure that the message matches the platform in delivery,, be it social media or anything else. The voice and content should be consistent and coherent across platforms, sites and apps.
The customer experience should be great
It doesn’t matter how often or how you bring people to your site. What matters is you need a seamless experience so that there are more opportunities for people to convert well.
The online experience should be easy to navigate and also easy for the average customer to use. You should develop a great idea regarding creating the kind of experience that will stand out.
Simple navigation followed by clear call to action is the need of the hour.
Capture Data From Visitors
It doesn’t matter how useful or user friendly your site is. Not all visitors are going to make a purchase or hit the buy button. People are in different stages of awareness. Some are looking for more information. Others are looking for freebies to give you their details and so on. By following up and asking them more questions you will know how to attract the right audience.
Find what’s working
The business environment is unprecedented. So you need more data to find and test hypothesis for the business. When you collect data and analytics about website traffic sales and visits you’re going to see which metrics are the most important. Next scale your business based on what you think seems to be working.
Give an offer of splitting the payment
Due to the pandemic and ensuing income loss people don’t have as much cash on their hands as they used to before. So instead of beating your head for the same, give new payment plans and options to customers for them to choose wisely. Instead of charging a single $999 payment, charge 12 payments of 99 each or $100 each.
This way customers have a reason to choose and stay with you.
In addition give away coupons and free offers.
Email marketing is also sure shot way of driving traffic and sales for you. Email marketing delivers high ROI.
About the Author
George blogs at Kamayobloggers a site where he shares keyword research and other tips.
