Without a doubt, the world is facing a trying period right now. With the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, people are staying home. Workers are being encouraged to work home if they can. In addition, grocery stores are doing what they can to make sure that they are stocked. However, there is another area that some people may be struggling to figure out. What to do as a business owner.
Business owners are struggling to figure out how to adapt to this new normal. It is a position most business owners probably did not think they would even have to be in. However, it is when times are slow that you want to take advantage and let people know you’re still in business. Therefore, we are here to give you some tips about what your business could be doing during the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020.
Don’t Stop Advertising
It is when times are slow for your business that progressive and forward thinking strategies are required. For instance, history has shown us that when you adopt this mindset, you will outperform businesses that cut off their advertising.
A recent study on Investopedia, honed in on what happened during a recession that affected a company’s performance. They found that the successful businesses understood that this period of short-term losses could stand to gain long-term profitability. Therefore, they refocused their digital marketing efforts, rather than cut spending.
Social Media Is Still Important
The coronavirus has entered almost every facet of our lives. Whether you have tested positive or not, I am sure most of us have been affected one way or another. We are in-home quarantine. In addition, schools across the nation are canceled. Most of our everyday normal routines are disrupted. As a result, these are jarring and off-putting inconveniences for sure.
It is right now when your business’ social media presence is more important than it ever has been. You want your customers to know that you are still around and that you are taking precautions during this time. Furthermore, it is a time to be sensitive with the content you post. Remember, there is an end to all of this, and you want your business to be ready to get back to normal when it is.
COVID-19 Posts Are Vital
One of the most important things you can do for your business right now (if you haven’t already) is to post a COVID-19 update. For instance, letting your customers know what you are doing. In addition, how your taking precautions to ensure the health of your employees and customers during this time. They also want to know how your business being opened or closed affects their lives. Customers want to know how is handling this situation and how it affects them. Therefore, you need to let them know how this affects them.
This is vital because it shows your customers that you care about them and that you have their best interests at heart. It also shows that you care for the well-being of your employees. Being understanding and sensitive to your customers is the best way you can utilize your social media presence right now. Furthermore, it shows that you are ready, willing, and strong enough to endure this crisis. This definitely helps for brand empowerment and recognition.
If you are a business whose physical location(s) are closed but still virtually open through the internet, it is especially important for you to let customers know that you can still provide them the service that they are used to getting.
You can also make COVID-19 posts that talk about you and your employees. This humanizes your business in the eyes of your customers because you are showing them that we are all in the same boat and that we are all in this together and we are adjusting together.
Keep Up With Your SEO
People working from home and being quarantined means that they are browsing the internet A LOT. They are scrolling, browsing, and findings businesses more than they normally are used to. This makes your SEO efforts an important effort in your business’ digital strategy during this time. SEO is always an important factor in any business’ marketing strategy. However, during the COVID-19 pandemic is where you want to make sure that your SEO is firing on all cylinders. Therefore, here are some basic best practices to remember during this time.
Have a Clear-cut Strategy
Having a clear SEO strategy that lines up with your other digital marketing tactics is vital and absolutely necessary these days. Having a consistent stream of content that solves problems, provides information, and educates your audience can go a long way. Google likes to reward sites who consistently write about the same topic, it helps establish authority and credibility. So, planning your content campaigns around your SEO goals actually makes you more likely to reach those goals.
Make Sure Your SEO is User-Optimized
It is understood that customers are the most important part of any business. This is especially true during these trying times. Keeping their experience in mind when refining your SEO will help its rank immensely. Mobile-optimized sites are rewarded more than non-optimized ones. Google knows that a majority of traffic comes from mobile devices. And now with people staying in more, we are going to be more attached to our mobile devices than ever before. Always develop your content with the user experience in mind. Do what is best for your customer, create content that solves their problems, engages them, and the rest will follow suit.
Social Media Sharing
Social media is an essential component to a digital marketing strategy. . People sharing your content on social media prove that they enjoy your content enough to share it around, meaning it is probably quality stuff. Creating content that is entertaining and informative can be a worthwhile effort. With the majority of people staying indoors, expect to see a surge in shared content.
Stick With Your PPC
With more people at home now, PPC marketing is going to be more essential now than it ever has been before. Refining and honing in on your PPC marketing will give you more connections to your customers and give you a competitive advantage over your competitors. You will also save money on your marketing budget due to the customizable nature of ppc and the ability to set your budget however you see fit to. The cost-per-clicks are steadily decreasing across all verticals. This is likely to continue in the coming weeks. This gives your business another incentive to keep advertising rather than cutting back. Now in order to take advantage of all of this, here are some tips to keep in mind.
Pick the Right Keywords
The fundamentals of PPC are all about keywords. The thing that makes any campaign good is using your knowledge of your target audience to choose the best keywords that are most likely to stick out to them and resonate with them.
Most PPC platforms use advanced algorithms to use your keywords to show your ads to people. The best practice is to do some research for the best keywords for your campaign.
Optimize Your Landing Pages
The more optimized your landing pages are for CTA’s (call-to-actions), the more you can understand what users are clicking on and use that in your search for relevant keywords.
Using what makes your business unique can be one of your most vital assets for optimizing your landing page. Use your landing page to tell users what makes you and your business special and to convince them to pick you over the competition.
Strive to Improve
One of the best things you can do for your campaign is to see what works and what does not and see how you can hone and refine your campaigns. The thing to always remember is that Google decides which of your ads is shown and where it is shown based on the quality score of your ads. The higher your score the lower the cost per click is and it is shown to more people.
Google measures quality scores with ratings from 1 to 10 and considers click-through rates, relevance of ad text and keywords, relevance and quality of a landing page, and earlier Google Ads conduct. This makes the need for constant improvement essential in order to show your ad to the maximum range of users at the lowest cost.
Conclusion
COVID-19 has changed the way many businesses conduct their operations. We are most likely to see more changes in the coming weeks. However, try not to fall in the panic that is sweeping the nation. Try to keep a clear head and remember that there is going to be an after this.
Things usually get worse before they get better. Nevertheless, remember the last part of that saying. It is going to get better and when it does; your business needs to be ready for what comes next. Finally, I want to reiterate that no one is alone in all of this with Covid-19. We are all in this fight together.
