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5 Marketing Strategies Your Business Needs to thrive in the COVID-19 Era

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       Today’s post was contributed by guest Amy Collet, creator of Bizwell.org, a website that helps professionals and entrepreneurs build and strengthen their personal brand. She is also the author of the upcoming book, You, Exemplified: The Role of Personal Branding in Your Professional Life. 

While thousands of companies have had to pause or close their businesses during the COVID-19 lockdowns, many have opened those doors back up. As exciting as this is, there are still a lot of challenges ahead.

Small businesses have been asking: How do I keep my customers safe? How can my business stay afloat if we encounter another round of lockdowns? How can I re-engage my customers now that we are back in business?

Of course, let’s not forget the most important question of all: How can I boost my business on a budget? Even with grants and stimulus checks, many businesses had to tap into their cash reserves to survive. Here are five budget-friendly marketing strategies to keep business flowing during the pandemic.

Hire marketing help.

If your business closed at all during 2020, then you may need to start your marketing efforts from scratch. Say It For You has been providing traffic-driving content and marketing strategies for businesses for years. You stand to benefit when you partner with such a professional — who can revamp your website, deliver quality blog content, kickstart your social media campaigns and engage your customers with paid social campaigns. Keep all these within a smart budget by hiring small businesses, freelancers, contractors, or interns looking to build their resumes.

Be sure your legal ducks are in a row.

A lot has changed with regard to business legality since the pandemic first hit. Sadly, some people have discovered that they weren’t able to apply for grants and loans because their businesses weren’t properly filed. Prevent that from happening to you by forming a limited liability company (LLC). Not only will that give you access to any future COVID-19 relief funds, but it also qualifies you for tax breaks and other benefits. Regulations vary from state to state, so do thorough research or enlist the help of a formation service to guide you.

Reward your loyal customers.

The customers who stuck with you or came back deserve a little extra TLC. Most business owners know that retention and loyalty are the foundation for successful business growth. Customer Service Magazine suggests doing something simple, like delivering loyalty rewards to their email inbox.

You can also go the extra mile by opening up your store for solo shopping or offer them sneak peeks of new merchandise. If you provide a service, offer how-to webinars to help them advance their own livelihoods with your insider knowledge.

Keep your customers confident.

If you have a brick-and-mortar building or meet clients face-to-face, be sure to follow all of the CDC’s guidelines for safety. While COVID-19 is not a deadly illness for most people, it can shut down entire communities if all aren’t careful and cautious. Remember that the sooner we beat this, the sooner we can get back to normal — and we all have a part to play.

Don’t give up.

Things have been hard — that’s an understatement. You may have to act differently or think broadly about what you do and how you do it, but a little creativity can go a long way. The point is to persevere. There are no easy answers these days and the business world has a long way to go to recover. You’ll have to do some long-term planning in the face of uncertainty, which is hard, but not impossible. When all else fails, turn to your customers — ask them how they are feeling and how you can better meet their needs — then go from there.

Small businesses have a long road to recovery ahead, but it’s also very hopeful. Businesses are opening back up and many are thriving from the support of their communities. Take the time to explore some of these tips to launch your business back into success.

 

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Blog Posts Don’t Seal – They Enable

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Will blog marketing “close” deals in the same way as face-to-face encounters between prospects and sales professionals? The answer is obviously “no”. This week’s Say It For You posts are devoted to the topic of blog marketing and its place in the overall sales process.

In the book Close the Deal, authors Sam Deep and Lyle Sussman suggest that a salesperson faced with a demanding prospect ask “What concession do you need from me to close the deal right now?” In blogging for business, of course, such a “bargaining” exchange would not be taking place between the business owner/practitioner and the reader/customer. On the other hand, one purpose of blog content is to persuade readers to act.

A very non-technical way I have of explaining the concept of blog marketing is this: Rather than running traditional ads for your brand of hats, vitamins, travel, or paint, you provide lots of information on the history of hats, on why vitamins are good for you, about exciting places to go on safari, and on the psychology of color. Consumers interested in your subject, but who never even knew your name, come to see you as a resource.

When blog readers follow your “calls to action” by phoning your business or practice, faxing in a request or an order, signing up for your newsletter, subscribing to your blog through an RSS feed, or proceeding to your shopping cart to buy your product or service, you know your blog marketing strategy is working Understand, though – it’s entirely possible that none of those things will happen at the first “meeting”.

Just as in traditional selling, you need to use blog content writing to “prove your case” by:

  • offering statistics about the problem your product or service helps solve
  • comparing your product or service with others on the market
  • providing testimonials from past and present customers and clients

Generally speaking, as I often stress when I offer Say It For You corporate blogging training, blog posts are not ads, and there should never be a hard-sell or boastful tone to the content. Blog posts are closer in nature to informative “advertorials”, positioning the company or practitioner as helpful, well-experienced, and knowledgeable.

Primarily, the blog post has to add value. Not just a promise of value if the reader converts to a buyer, but value right then and there in terms of information, skill enhancement, or a new way of looking at the topic. The best blog posts are never about yourself, your company, your services, or your products, but about why you see things the way you do.

Typically, a blog post doesn’t “seal” the deal, so much as it “enables” the deal.

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To the Blog Writer, It’s One Thing; To the Reader, It Might Be Another

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blog marketing
If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it dozens of times in this Say It For You blog – blogs are not ads.  Still, always on the prowl for good ideas, I happened upon a full page ad (for sleep chairs, of all things!) that could actually serve as a model for us blog content writers. 
The headline consisted of a quote from a customer:
“To you, it’s the perfect lift chair. To me, it’s the best sleep chair I’ve ever had.”

Then, beneath a picture of the lift chair, there was a three paragraph article.  “You can’t always lie down in bed and sleep. Heartburn, cardiac problems, hip or back aches, dozens of other ailments and worries. Those nights you’d give anything for a comfortable chair to sleep in.”
It’s a good idea to build the occasional blog post around a customer success story. Good testimonials give prospective customers peace of mind, providing proof that people have tried your products and services and approve of them.

The second paragraph went on to highlight some special features of the product – heat and massage settings, battery backup, and a lift mechanism that tilts the chair forward.
In one of my favorite books about selling, Mitch Meyerson’s Success Secrets of the Online Marketing Superstars, the author points out that features tell us two things about a product or service:  what it does and what goes into it. In this ad, of course, the benefits (what the product does for the customer) are emphasized first, with the features described second.

The third paragraph highlighted “white glove delivery”, with professionals unpacking the chair in the customer’s home, inspecting and positioning it, even carrying the packaging away.
Since at Say It For You, our content writers serve the needs of both product vendors and professional practitioners, I was very interested in this paragraph about extra services associated with the product. Blog content writers should make lists of ways their business individualizes and personalizes services to customers and clients.

The bottom of the page had the phone number (with a special code), along with a color and fabric chart.
While blogs are not advertisements, I often explain to content writers that a Call to Action does not at all invalidate the good information provided in the piece. As long as the material is valuable and relevant for the searchers, they’re perfectly fine with knowing there’s someone who wants them for a client or customer. In fact, the Call to Action in the form of a phone number to call or a link to click makes it convenient for readers who are ready to buy.

To the blog writer, the product or service might represent one thing; to individual readers, it might represent another, all the more reason to vary the approach in different posts. 
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Blogging Helps FNU LNUs Get Found

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FNU LNU (acronym for First Name Unknown, Last Name Unknown) is a term used by authorities to identify unknown suspects. When you’re selecting keyword phrases to use in your website and blog content, it’s useful to remember that the business owner or the professional practitioner is actually the FNU LNU in the equation. Nine out of ten, I explain to newbie blog content writers, at stage #1 of their search, online readers don’t know the name of the individual, the business, or the practice. What most consumers are likely to type into the search bar are words describing:
  • their need
  • their problem
  • their idea of the solution to their problem
  • a question

Blogging for business, I teach at Say It For You, essentially consists of introducing yourself to strangers.  Not that it isn’t a good idea to email links to your blog posts to existing customers and clients, but, for developing new relationships, your blog will be your central prospecting tool. In order to convert those “strangers” to friends and customers, address your blog posts to them, and write about them.  Fact is, they’re going to care about your name only if and when they know you care about their problems and needs, and when they are reassured that you have just the means to take care of them.

 

It’s reassuring to blog content writers to remember that the only people who are going to be reading the blog posts, are those searching for precisely the kinds oif information, products, and services that relate to what you do, what you have for sale, and what you know about and know how to do. It’s also reassuring to realize that consumers who feel fairly informed are more likely to make buying decisions.

 

Generally speaking, the information consumers seek in the process of online searching falls into three categories:
  1. How to do things
  2. How to find things
  3. How to keep things (and their bodies) in the best condition possible

Once having been “found”, the next step is to get “personal”, Practical eCommerce’s Paul Chaney emphasizes “Blogging,” he says, “consists of one person – or one company – communicating directly with consumers in an unfettered, unfiltered manner….blogs are a more personal form of communication.”

Marketing blogs may be written about business, but they had better be about people as well, and that includes both the online searchers and the blog content writers. You start out being a FLU LNU, and, ideally, end up being an ally! 

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Blog to Become the JND

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blog marketing

It’s a term from the field of psychology, but the concept is one to which we blog content writers can certainly relate. The JND (just noticeable difference) is the minimum level of stimulation that is needed for a person to detect it, at least 50 percent of the time. For example, if you were asked to hold two objects of different weights, the just noticeable difference would be the minimum weight difference between the two that you could sense half of the time. The just noticeable difference applies to a wide variety of senses including touch, taste, smell, hearing, and sight, explains Kendra Cherry in verywellmind.com. If an experimenter were to slowly add tiny amounts of sand to one of your hands, asking you to say when you notice that one hand feels heavier than the other, that would reveal your JND.

“It’s best to think about who your prospective leads are online and what they might want to read, before sitting down to write a blog post,” Campaign Creators advise. The JND will be the precise point will online readers notice that their needs are being addressed and that the information you’re offering is relevant to their search. According to Internet Live Stats, there are around 5.5 billion Google searches per day or more than 63,000 search queries per second. With such an ocean of material available on the internet on every conceivable topic, at what point will your prospect undergo that minimum level of stimulation need to command her attention?

Always on the alert for ways to convey marketing messages through corporate blog content writing, I couldn’t help recalling Jeffrey Hayzlett’s advice in Success Magazine about grabbing the attention of would-be customers: “Aim for speed and immediate relevance”. There can be no “relevance”, blog content writers need to understand, until and unless the reader experiences JND.

To help that process, I teach Indianapolis blog writers to address five “why’s”:

  1. why YOU (the reader)
  2. why ME (the blogger)
  3. why THIS (the offer)
  4. why now (the urgency)
  5. why this price (the value).

Blog to help the Just Noticeable Different happen!

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