The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has completely changed the business landscape, but there are ways that businesses can shore up their marketing strategies.
“Business as usual is not going to work right now – we need to change, we need to adapt,” said Tam Al-Saad, head of growth at Webprofits, in a recent webinar.
With the coronavirus disrupting so many aspects of normal life, Mr Al-Saad outlined a number of ways that businesses could adapt their marketing immediately and promote themselves differently going forward.
Here are some things to consider:
How to adapt your marketing now
“It’s important to review all of your active and scheduled ad campaigns,” Mr Al-Saad said.
He said any active or scheduled ads set up even just a few weeks ago were unlikely to be relevant today because the needs of your audience had probably changed.
“But it’s not just email campaigns though, email automations have been great at helping businesses grow for years, and it’s right now where they might trip you up,” he said.
Mr Al-Saad said marketers should put themselves in the shoes of the recipient to see if their email automations looked and felt right.
He noted that businesses should double down on campaigns that are doing well.
“If you review everything that you’re doing right now, look to see if anything is performing, and if there is, then invest more time and more effort to making that deliver even more,” he said.
“Facebook CPMs are down massively. I was talking to a number of clients in the last few weeks, who were saying they were down as much as 15, 20, 40, and even 70 per cent.”
How to promote your business better during COVID-19
In order to promote your business effectively during COVID-19, businesses need to go back to their marketing funnels and review the conversion part of the funnel first.
“If you have campaigns that are making sales right now, put more effort into them, put more optimisation into them, and continue to make those sales,” Mr Al-Saad said.
If you’re running Google Ads campaigns, it’s also a good time to look at the keywords that people are using during COVID-19.
“It’s a great time to review your keyword research because there’s likely to be some new search terms that people weren’t using before, but also search terms have massively increased or decreased depending on what people’s needs are right now,” he said.
Don’t forget to use remarketing (or retargeting) to bring website visitors back to your website and make a sale.
Many businesses have also been concerned about putting out advertising messages in case they look like they’re trying to pounce on the pandemic to make a quick buck, Mr Al-Saad said.
But he said it came down to how your messaging responded to the motivations of your audience.
“If you use your customer’s fear to make more sales, if you exasperate their fear, if you can scare them into making sales, it will work but you are being opportunistic,” he said.
“However, if you use your messaging to allay your customer’s fears and to highlight other motivations instead, you can be far more successful — what it takes for that to happen is a lot of empathy.”
Need help with your marketing in the time of COVID-19?
These unusual times may require you to change your marketing focus or find digital solutions. If you need help reaching customers, generating new leads and boosting sales, then the team at Assemblo can help.
Assemblo is a full-service marketing agency based in Melbourne, offering clients access to a team of highly skilled marketing professionals including strategists, account managers, designers, software developers, journalists and copywriters, social media producers, photographers, SEO specialists and more.
To find out more, give us a call on (03) 9079 2555 or drop us a note via the contact form below.