Times are tough. There’s no doubt about it. COVID-19 has hit us hard and no one was ready for the ramifications it would have on our businesses. Now more than ever it is important to have a game plan to stay connected with your customers and provide as much value as possible. Even if customers are not potentially visiting your business, it does not mean you don’t have the opportunity to gain their trust. If you are a purely online business, you may have a slight advantage right now. Regardless, here are 5 things you can do to build your business right now.

Come Up With A Content Marketing Plan

One of the most time-consuming aspects of social media marketing is coming up with an actual plan for how you want to attack it. From the right photos to videos to blogs, it’s hard to keep track of it all. What does one day? When should it go out? At what times should they be posted? Well, every single one of these aspects is important and you want to make sure they are intentional. Right now many business owners are finding themselves with a lot more time during this crisis. So now you have no excuses as to why you can’t sit down for 2-3 hours and write these all out. Grab a calendar and on each day write down a topic that would be of interest to your ideal customer/audience. After you choose the topic, determine what kind of content you want it to be; an infographic, a video, a blog, a photo with a nice caption? It’s up to you and what you feel most comfortable with! Once it is written down on paper, but it to action one by one. Create each piece of content over the next few days so that you can have them ready to go and post at the most optimized time for your audience. You can find these times in your analytics! By doing so, you will help ease the burden of trying to constantly be searching for content ideas or scrambling to put something together that is both high quality and consistent. 

Directly Engage with your customers online

During this outbreak… your customers are online and they are looking for social interaction! Social distancing doesn’t mean social media! If anything, so many more people are looking to build relationships and connect because of the lack of in-person communication. This creates a great opportunity for you to find these individuals and start a conversation. Whether it be a comment, alike, a share, or a DM (direct message), engage with both your current following and potential new followers. Every single one of these actions you take is a notification that that person receives and is now exposed to your business or your personal brand. The more they see you, the more opportunities they have to like you and trust you. When someone knows, likes, and trusts you… they tend to support you! Although it may seem tedious and time-consuming, it is one of the most important things you can do. Also, did I mention it’s free? If you’re having trouble finding new people to implement this with, search up hashtags that are relevant to your business/topics and for local businesses look through geotags for people that are in your area.

Run Facebook/Google Ads 

With many businesses being forced to shut down during this time, so have their ad accounts. Not because they were shut down by Facebook or Google, but because they don’t believe in advertising during a time that they are not in operation. If your business still has an opportunity to generate sales through any method at all, this is an incredible time to advertise online! Not only because more people are on their phones more than ever, but because so many other businesses have pulled their ad spend right now, CPM’s (cost per thousand) are at a low! This means it is cheaper than ever to reach targeted customers via paid advertising. Just as an example, we are currently seeing leads come in anywhere from $0.35 – $2 right now depending on the industry. You know what they say about the stock market? Well, now it is also a great time to buy ad space! If you literally can’t generate sales right now (there’s always a way – get creative), you can focus on brand awareness so that when everything is all over you are the go-to in your space!

Solidify your website and/or rebrand 

Remember all of those times you said I’ll get to it later? Well, later has come. This extra time is also a perfect opportunity for you to focus on your backend and/or brand. Those little mistakes on your website, those colors you don’t like, that piece of content that isn’t high quality …. It’s time to go. Allocate the time to create sales funnels, email campaigns, drip campaigns, website additions, logo ideas, mission statements… you name it! Revamp and get it ready for a new launch or even just correct what you’ve had on your to-do list for over a year. 

Host Facebook/Instagram lives for your audience 

Have you heard the saying “Go live – it’s free”? Well, that’s not the only reason why you should do it. Every business should be capitalizing on the ability to go live with their customers. Being able to bring your community into whatever it is that you do not only help with customer retention, but it provides a sense of transparency that genuinely creates a brand one individual at a time. You could be having a one on one conversation with hundreds of people! Whether you’re a gym that is hosting live classes, a personal brand answering questions from your audience, or even a tutoring company sharing live tips on how to stay focused at home, going live is a great way to stay connected at the moment and bring your customers along for a ride!

There is a multitude of tasks that you can be taking on right at this moment to keep you going and help you come back stronger than ever. If you can become a source of entertainment, education, or motivation during these times, your business will thrive as soon as it is over. People will fall in love with you and your brand. Genuine relationships will win this game. You have every opportunity at your fingertips (literally) to be able to connect and resonate with every single one of your customers. Don’t let COVID-19 bring you down. Keep your business afloat and be the reason someone else keeps pushing. 

If you ever have any questions or concerns that we can help with, let us know! We are more than happy to help!