Why Small Businesses Need Content Marketing Despite COVID-19
Shuttering a business is a hard decision.
But it’s more challenging during the COVID-19 pandemic. Nobody knows when the outbreak ends, and it is quite difficult to decide if you need to continue struggling for your company or not.
You’re not alone.
Over 30 million U.S. small business owners and more than 1 million Canadian counterparts are facing the same problem. They are also dealing with stress, anxiety, lack of money, frustration, and uncertainty.
And the biggest mistake that some of them make is stopping any content marketing efforts.
It might seem reasonable as their revenue falls.
But this quite affordable instrument can aid entrepreneurs to keep their business afloat and revive it quite fast after the pandemic.
Let me walk you through some reasons why content marketing should be part of your strategy despite COVID-19.
Retaining current customers
Was it challenging to build a loyal customer base?
How many months or years did it take?
Quite many, isn’t it?
Salon business owners, for example, need about one year to get enough clients to start making a profit. The next 12 months they usually spend on attracting ideal customers. Only with a perfect marketing campaign, this time can be reduced to 4–6 months. But that happens quite rarely.
Think about it…
By stopping regular online communication with clientele, you risk losing them quite fast. Some surveys show that after an unsatisfied customer service experience, 39% of clients usually choose to avoid a company for two or more years.
During the pandemic, people still want to get information from their favourite restaurants, barbershops, manicure salons, pizzerias, and many other companies and organizations that were part of their routine before the outbreak.
What do they want to know?
Nothing extraordinary. Just how you are dealing with the pandemic, what services still provide, and what kind of support you need. As U.S. and Canadian officials are planning to ease some quarantine measures, your clients also might want to know when your company resumes its work and to what extent it is safe to get your services in-person.
Be sure that your loyal customers keep visiting your social media pages and website to get answers to these questions.
So, what’s my point?
Keep the clients updated as much as your budget and time allow.
How? Just do some basic content marketing stuff.
Tell them your unique small business story to explain why the company should survive, let them know the difficulties you face amid the outbreak, and how they can help you.
Let’s dive in a bit.
After doing some basic research, I’ve found out that only 2 out of 10 barbershops in New York, which websites I checked, got information related to COVID-19. The others just ignored the situation as well as their customers and posted absolutely nothing.
One of the best examples is Blind Barber. It has quite a short but relevant announcement. It states clearly that the small business does not operate now, and the safety of its clientele and staff is the top priority. Apart from that, the statement suggests a way how customers can support the company during the COVID-19 outbreak.
Quite smart, isn’t it?
Fellow Barber did it even better.
They launched a fundraising campaign, posted their heartwarming business story, and informed their customers about all the measures the company has been taking to guarantee decent payments to all the staff. As in the example above, they also mentioned the options about how the clients can help the salon survive.
Their content marketing strategy has brought some great results. The business has raised over USD 60,000 for their Employee Relief Fund.
Apart from that, you, as a small business owner, can also keep your loyal customers informed on social media, via emails, or newsletters.
The clients should definitely know that you care about them, want to resume the work after the COVID-19 pandemic, and there are some ways to support your company during this hard time.
Improving web ranking
Want to keep your small business afloat?
Then don’t stop updating your website. I know that it’s quite challenging now but continue to do it if you have some time or financial resources.
Why? Quite simple.
When the quarantine ends, your online platform will still be alive. So, it’ll give you a chance to attract new or former customers as soon as possible to restore the small business right after the COVID-19 outbreak.
As you probably know, it might take at least 3 months to rank at the top of Google search results for a particular keyword. Don’t allow COVID-19 to ruin all the content marketing efforts you’ve achieved.
Don’t waste the time you got.
Keep filling up your website with fresh and valuable content. If you do not offer any services now, then just create a blog to generate coronavirus-related or evergreen pieces that will be useful for your customers for a while. Just be consistent and post something new regularly.
Here are just two examples of commercial blogs that drive high-quality leads to their websites thanks to a quite good content marketing approach.
Sierra Designs, a producer of tents, sleeping bags, and backpacks, is famous by its ‘Think Outside’ platform that is full of adventurous and useful advice from their customers — passionate travelers.
The other example is Paul Mitchell, a producer of salon-quality hair products and styling tools. Its blog provides women with a lot of useful hairstyle content.
Both these companies are quite big, but it doesn’t mean that you can’t learn from them. Just take some time, define your content marketing strategy, generate several blog ideas, and start writing.
But keep in mind these SEO basics:
- Do some research to find out relevant and popular keywords as well as topics
- Try to create at least 800-word blog posts
- Don’t forget to mention the chosen keyword phrase in a post’s title, URL, the first 100–150 words, and text, of course
- Integrate relevant photos but don’t forget name them properly by integrating the keyword phrase
- Meta descriptions are necessary. Don’t skip them. It’s like a short promo of your every post. So, a call to action is required
- Provide additional information by integrating internal and external links to some authoritative and useful resources or your other relevant posts
Still not sure if blogging can help your business?
Then, some sobering content marketing statistics might change your mind. Your website has a 434% higher chance of being ranked highly on Google if it has a regularly-updated and customer-oriented blog. Apart from that, the companies integrating blogs into their digital strategies usually get 67% more leads.
Be brave and start blogging!
Attracting new consumers
What are people doing at home now?
Let me guess… They’re cooking, working, taking care of their family members, entertaining themselves, doing regular shopping, and checking updates on social media.
Quite obvious, isn’t it?
The March statistics showed that the average daily in-home data usage in the United States skyrocketed by almost 40% to 16.6 gigabytes, up from 12 gigabytes in the same month of 2019. Users in the U.S. spent by over 30% more time on popular social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter than before.
So, what’s my point?
Don’t give up at least basic content marketing efforts as people are still getting a lot of information from social media and websites.
Use the quarantine as the unique opportunity to promote your brand by getting back to building brand awareness for attracting new followers, which you can convert to customers after the pandemic.
How?
Start with basic research by using Google Trends or Google Keyword Planner. You will get an idea of what users from your country or city are searching on the Internet now.
For example, my quite basic online ‘investigation’ revealed that people want to know very general stuff that can make their life better during the pandemic.
Here’s a list of few search queries that might help small business owners to create relevant content during the coronavirus outbreak:
- When will restaurants reopen?
- How to order groceries or food online?
- Is any chance of getting a haircut during the pandemic?
- How to do a haircut, a manicure, or a pedicure at home?
- How to cook bread, pies, pizza, and many other dishes at home?
When you get some relevant to your industry topics, go to brainstorming ideas for posts, newsletters, emails, or websites. Try to create engaging and useful content for users — do not try to sell at this stage. The main goal is to draw attention and get new subscribers now.
What your posts or videos can be about? Here are just some examples.
- 5 Simple Bread Recipes That You Can Try at Home
- 10 Common Mistakes to Avoid Doing a Manicure at Home
- Ready-to-Go Grocery Lists for 4-member Families
- How to Take Care of Your Hair During the Pandemic
- 6 Simple Exercises You Can Do While Stuck at Home
Some U.S. and Canadian companies are quite creative. For example, Crunch Fitness is doing a great job in content marketing during the COVID-19 pandemic. They regularly post on social media nutrition meals’ recipes and video lessons on how to keep exercising at home using quite basic stuff.
I know what you’re thinking…
Crunch Fitness is not a small business company, and it probably still has some budget for content marketing. But everything they produce now is not super complicated and requires only creativity, some time, your expertise, and cellphone.
Just try it!
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