How To Market A Business During A Pandemic
The coronavirus pandemic has caused a lot of issues for small businesses. With the ongoing uncertainty and lockdowns, many business owners have lost customers or closed premises, and some have sadly gone out of business forever.
Recessions are usually a time when businesses stop all their marketing efforts and try to save money. Whilst this will help with the short term budgeting issues, it will have a negative impact on the business in the long term. History has shown that businesses that continue their marketing activities in a recession come out the other side stronger than ever.
But that doesn’t mean you should start throwing all your money into marketing. It is a myth that you need to spend a fortune to market your business. Big agencies won’t tell you about the free things that you can do yourself. Here are my top tips for marketing your business during a recession.
Content is king
Blogs and articles on your website are a great way to showcase your expertise in your area as well as helping your search engine ranking. Have a think about the questions your customers ask you and see if you can answer the problem in a blog. You can also write tips for your customers or educate them about a subject related to your business.
Use the blog to talk directly to your customers but keep it light and informal. It can take time to get used to writing blogs so don’t be too hard on yourself if it takes a while to get it right.
Join networking groups online
One good thing that has come out of the pandemic is that most networking groups are now online and free, so sign up to as many as possible. There are a lot of different formats and different size groups so try as many as you can. Some are very strict and formal whereas others are more laid back.
It can send you out of your comfort zone so be prepared by practicing your elevator pitch, go over what you do, why you are different. Remember, networking is about building relationships rather than about getting sales. It can take time to get used to networking online if you haven’t done it before so if you struggle at the start, I can assure you that you aren’t the only one.
Get some free publicity in the local media
If you have anything newsworthy to share then make sure you write a press release and send it to the local media and they will often print it for free. Make sure that what you have to write about is newsworthy, for example, if you are moving into new premises, taking on a new staff member or if you are celebrating your first year in business.
This is a great way to get your business name known in your local community.
Create your Google My Business account
Every business should have a Google My Business account. It is a free listing on Google that will appear when people search for businesses in your local area. It is also a great place for your customers to write reviews about your business. Then when people see the listing and the good reviews they are more likely to click on your website.
So there you have it, you don’t have to spend a fortune on marketing your business, there are a lot of free tools you can use. As long as you are constantly trying to get your business out there then you will be off to a good start.
