COVID-19 has forced people to stay home and businesses to close their physical offices. The impact of this pandemic on both online (digital marketing) and offline businesses are already being felt across the globe. Companies are conducting the world’s largest work-from-home experiment.
Amid all this crisis, you have to think about your marketing strategies, team, and customers. Its time to rethink how you manage your marketing team.
Given below are a few tips to make the most of your marketing teams and strategy during this crisis:-
Ask your team to carry out Event-based programs
Restrictions on large meetings are cutting off vendors who serve businesses and themes of their events. Now develop alternative marketing ideas for sporting events planned for spring and summer. Do not wait until the event is canceled to make a plan.
Retrain your Employees to prepare for time ahead
While some employees may need to let go due to business losses, think about how to prepare them for the future by training them. What skills are weak? Where are the gaps you can face in 19 years?
The results of the February 2020 CMO survey showed that the company spends only 4.7% of its marketing budget on training. It may be time to start this in order to prepare for the future when the isolation is lifted.
Build Long-term Strategies for Better Results
We are all focused on navigating the COVID-19 crisis, but don’t forget to think about the long-term impact on your business. Often, in times of crisis, employees are responsible for short-term critical tactical tasks by default.
It can appear on the market and how your team should respond. Better yet, what can you do to help your company create a better future?
Boost morale of your Work From Home employees
This is a very uncertain moment, and as many of us are almost working, team activities that raise morale have receded. You need time to appease the staff and plan activities like a virtual happy hour or a game night. You can also compensate them to boost their morale.
Frequent morning “coffee capture” through video chat can be a long way to develop the daily time when team members know they can get answers and share updates, as well as build structures in this unstable environment. You may want to keep some of these virtual best practices, once we get back as usual.
Anticipate operational impacts
The delivery of products and services faced many challenges during this crisis. Closed plants and interruptions in the supply chain result in reduced supply on one side of the business, while customer problems lead to increased demand for services.
Manage your engagements- Set realistic expectations for service levels, product release dates, product availability, and more.
Consider a product collection campaign that you cannot identify to be produced and delivered. Evaluate current policies and consider reasonable changes, such as allowing cancellation or extension of payment terms.
The ability to create resolution customer service volumes: produce positive messages, distributed through email, social media, and web to answer frequently asked questions. In addition, reactive scripts are written to help customer service representatives handle sensitive one-to-one interactions.
Train qualified team members with fewer features to help manage customer service channel needs. Improve online trading and digital interaction. Innovative ways to deliver your product or its aspects, such as routine medical access to telemedicine or online learning for millions of students leaving school.
Optimize marketing budgets- All functions of the organization will be redeployed to prioritize expenditures. Try to avoid complete cuts.
Rather, it seeks ways to improve efficiency (e.g. by seeking duplication of agency or marketing technology contracts) and to reduce or postpone obligations that do not add value to the current environment, including those that may arise from hearing impaired.
Here are some digital marketing strategies your business:
1. Update your Google My Business
It’s essential for local businesses to update their Google My Business page, especially when “nearby” or “near me” searches are the most common.
Google CEO, Sundar Pichai said, “In the coming days, we’ll make it possible for businesses to easily mark themselves as ‘temporarily closed’ using Google My Business.”
1. Update your opening and closing hours on listing.
2. You can also update how your business is dealing with COVID-19.
3. You can also mark your Business as “Temporarily closed” by contacting Google My Business Support.
2. Focus on Customer Service & Reputation Management
Long before the coronavirus emerged, consumer trust in both government and large brands had eroded. People now align more closely with family, friends and local businesses. Brands can push against that wave by rising to the occasion to re-establish trust through customer-centric actions.
- Listen- Now more than ever, it’s important to know what customers feel and do, and why. Use social listening to monitor customer discussions about health concerns or information needs relevant to your brand.
- Ask sales and account management teams what they hear from the front lines. Monitor customer care emails, phone calls and service chats for changes in concerns or sentiment.
- Balance your response– Marketers must support customers and protect customer relationships while staying honest about what the firm can and cannot deliver at this time.
- Be careful about taking actions that provide short-term stability (or gain) for the firm at the expense of customer trust.
3. Answer Frequently Asked Questions
People are using Google more than ever. Ensure that your website content answers the questions that searchers are looking for, whether that’s to see if you’re open or stocking certain products.
By having the answers to these questions — and adding FAQ schema to the pages they’re on — you have an opportunity to appear higher in the search engine results page (SERP), which in turn, can increase your traffic and click-through-rate (CTR.)
4. Create a Google Ads Campaign
As mentioned above, you need to inform the customer if it is still open during this period. If you’re worried that you won’t receive the message, one way is to create a Google ad campaign. Arrive customers who intend to buy quickly.
You can also use your favorite Facebook ad to reach your target audience on social media.
Because we can expect a decrease in demand for certain products and services, it’s time to use online advertising to drive discounts and support your sales team. Of course, depending on your product/service, you should be aware of possible interruptions in inventory and delivery.
5. Utilize Social Media
Like Google My Business, use your social media channels to keep your customers up to date with your business. You can create publications that inform customers if it is open; if you are accepting online orders or offering a takeaway sale, or simply keeping yourself and your employees safe.
Taking the right action and finding the right information can be difficult, especially in cases of rapid change. All companies must operate with integrity and confidence, even if they are under the pressure of rapidly changing circumstances. At the same time, services that are ideal for difficult times should go smoothly, so as not to think that customers are taking advantage of the tragedy.
Sellers should not wait for problems to evolve or markets to take clear directions before planning and taking action. Instead, follow a four-step action plan to define scenarios, monitor customers, and plan marketing changes.
