How to Make Your Marketing Effective During COVID-19 Pandemic
The coronavirus is the blackest swan in the 21st century: it disrupts everything and has the potential of permanently changing how we live. With many cities placed under quarantine, businesses in almost all industries, be it education, manufacturing, fashion, or FMCG, are going digital. However, moving a seminar online and turning it into a webinar is difficult, especially during this hard time, and there are 5 things that every business should be aware of before designing its digital marketing strategy.
Tell a Good Story
What you are selling is not a product, but a solution, and you need a story that your customers can relate to. Put yourself into the customers’ shoes, and imagine what difficulties they might encounter, and how your products might make them disappear. Be genuine, emphatic, and considerate. While story-telling has always been important (even with a traditional sales pitch: a necklace salesperson wouldn’t begin his/her speech with the properties of the necklace. Instead, the speech would start with “Do you want to surprise your girlfriend”?), it is even more so in the era of digital marketing, where people’s attention is short-spanned and easily distracted. Think about how you can hit them in the right place, at the right time, in the right way, and with the right message. At this point, probably make sure your story is virus-relevant.
What Is Everyone Twitting About?
In America, almost 90% of all businesses have social media accounts. While with the number of social media platforms exploding, it is difficult to do all of them. Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Instagram, Snapchat, Vimeo…what is right for you? Before jumping into a social media account and spending significant resources (financial as well as human), think about whether your potential customers and the average users of that platform match. For example, if you want to sell cool T-shirts to teenagers, LinkedIn is probably not the best place to start.
They didn’t Open Your Email…Deliberately
Email campaigns are a good way to connect with potential customers: it reaches a large customer base at a low price. However, with more and more businesses conducting email campaigns, customers are de-sensitized, and over 20% of people never open marketing emails. How to make sure your messages are read and responded to? First and most important, write a cursive and captivating subject line. Tell ONE thing and give ONE call-to-action. Be as personal as possible (address them with real names) and design your format in a way that triggers the reaction. And, don’t forget to make your email mobile-friendly, as many people check their emails on smartphones.
Help Your Customers Find You
Your customers want something that you can provide. They click a few words in Google. Your competitor’s website, NOT YOURS, shows up. How does this happen? It is all about SEO (search engine optimization). But how to do SEO so as to attract more traffic? A few things to remember is to create good content, set the right keywords, and make everything user-friendly. With a good SEO strategy, you can not only attract a lots of traffic, but also accurate leads.
Make Your Website as Easy as a Children’s Slide
Okay, finally your potential customers are directed to your website where they can place an order. Now, do not think of them as adults; think of them as a child that needs help at every single step. Your website should be designed in a way that the customers intuitively know where they are at, where they should go, and where to seek help. It is important to let them know the system status and reduce cognitive burdens as much as possible.
COVID-19 is hard for everyone. But within every crisis lies an opportunity. Maybe it is a good thing to switch your business digital. But before jumping in, make sure you have the right strategy.
