24 Mar 10 tips to keep your business active during COVID-19
Read time: 8 minutes
It may take time for us to get back to “business as usual”, and for how long it may be like this we’re not sure. But there are plenty of ways to keep your business active during COVID-19 and preparing for when normality resumes. While these times are uncertain for many businesses, it is important to focus coming out onto the other side. This is only temporary. Small businesses can use a combination of short-term and long-term marketing strategies to ensure that your business is ready to spring back into action when it is time. We’ve put together 10 tips to keep your business going during this social distancing and isolation period and until we can all return to “business as usual” with good health.
10 tips to keep your business active during COVID-19
1. Start cleaning up any damage
Whether your business is facing sudden cancellations or the issue of un-moving stock, the first step is to clean up the damage created by these issues. Create a procedure that you will use to tackle the issues and delegate the tasks of this procedure to different team members. It can be mentally exhausting to deal with the aftermath of lost business. However, the more quickly and proactively you deal with these challenges, the quicker you will be able to find new opportunities. You can’t change what is going on and it’s not your fault. You need to accept this and be ready to move forward.
2. Communicate with your customers
Let your customers know what is happening with your business. If you are a business that is required to close its physical store during this time, let your customers know if you will be selling online instead. If you’re not already selling online, now is the time to start! Proactively communicating with your customers helps prevent the loss of any sales from customers who are unclear whether your business is still operating. You can keep your customers updated with the latest information about your business through email or social media.
3. Invest in your social media strategy
With many people staying at home during isolation, many of your customers will be on social media for longer. Keeping this in mind, you may post more regularly on social media so that your business stays top of mind. As well as updating your customers on your business, you can also reach new customers online through social media advertising. This investment will help your business even after this isolation period is finished.
Utilise your time to forward plan as well, having a long-term strategy in place can help for when business comes back in full swing and then you won’t have time!
4. Maintain a community around your brand
In line with investing in social media, another tip to keep your business active during COVID-19 is to create an online community around your brand. Don’t just post onto social media, be there to speak and discuss with your potential customers and others in your industry. Reply to your customers enquiries or comments on your posts. The industry your business is in can change the way you create and interact with your online community. However, having a close connection with this community can help maintain loyalty even if your business may currently be unable to operate.
5. Consider temporary changes to your strategy
The internet has given many opportunities for small businesses to keep going during this time. A change that we recommend is to your strategy is taking more of your business online. This may include promoting your online store to let your customers know that it is another way that they can purchase your products. If your business is in the hospitality industry you may also choose to list your business on a delivery app such as Deliveroo, Menulog or Uber Eats so that your customers can still order from you.
6. Improve your online presence
In order for these changes made to your strategy to be effective, you will need to improve your online presence. This is to basically ensure that your website can be effortlessly found by your customers which can be done by investing your time in Search Engine Optimisation (SEO). Write blog posts and interesting information for your customers and upload onto your website. Create guest blogs and get published on other websites. Tidy up the content in your own website and work on your keywords and what you really want to be ranking for.
Another strategy you may consider is improving customer experience on your website by making your website easier to navigate. See if you can edit pages, menu bars or buttons to be more helpful to the users on your site.
If you are currently not online, you can instead take this as the opportunity to start your business’ online presence. We can help you with websites and ecommerce stores here.
7. Plan for future campaigns
As well as using short-term strategies to keep your business active during COVID-19, you may choose to use this down-time is to plan for future campaigns. Once the isolation period finishes, your business will pick up once again, and with the sudden spike in demand for your products, you will most likely be busier than before. To prevent a situation where you will not be able to plan campaigns later in the year, we recommend planning major campaigns during this down-time. This can include campaigns such as EOFY and maybe even Christmas.
8. Plan the projects that you have always wanted to do
There may be projects that you have always wanted to begin but have never had the chance to plan. Take this opportunity to start planning these projects so they’re ready to roll out post-isolation. These don’t need to be big projects, you may even just focus on doing some photography of your products to create stunning shots that you want to post on your social media accounts or to update the images that are currently on your website.
9. Develop yourself and train your staff
If you find yourself low on work during the isolation period, take the time to develop yourself! Learning more about new software or even researching more efficient ways to improve current processes is a great place to get started. You can also take this time train your staff so that they are all up to date on business processes. This investment in training can help your business come back to its regular operations with more effective practices and perhaps even counter the losses occurred in the earlier months.
10. Stay informed about government regulations
Knowledge is power. Keeping up to date on how government regulations for businesses affects your business can help you plan your strategy. This can be a great source of strength during uncertain times like these where there are regular changes taking place. Being clear on what is happening in the industry can help you analyse best course of action for your business. You can also use this information to make any immediate changes to your strategy. This will help your business can do its best given the situation.
Did you find these 10 tips to keep your business active during COVID-19 useful? Follow us on LinkedIn and Facebook for more tips on how to keep going strong through these challenging times.
Redsteps turned 10 in mid-2019, so we are creating a series of ’10 tips’ to share the knowledge gained from our experiences to help you with your business’ marketing.
If you’re looking for looking for more ideas on how to keep your business going this isolation period, contact us today. We specialise in a variety of marketing services and can help you create a strategy that is tailored to your business so that it is ready to return to “business as usual”!