The Covid-19 pandemic has put many businesses on complete shutdown, with fears that some will never recover from the consequences of going into lockdown. Countries around the world have been forced to halt their economies in order to combat the virus and for those companies that have closed, the future looks very uncertain.
However, this is the perfect time for business owners and decision makers to be reviewing their digital marketing strategy, ready to bounce back after lockdown is eased and eventually lifted. Some companies will be able to tweak their business model to find other strategies during lockdowns. For example, restaurants that have had to close to the public in the UK have started to provide deliveries when they never did previously
For these kinds of changes to be successful, the business needs to have a strong digital marketing plan, to make sure that customers are aware of what they are offering. They won’t be able to rely on word of mouth, as nobody is out seeing people to tell them, and it is unlikely that they are going to be walking past the business premises to see any updates that are posted in the window.
Here are some of the key ways to use digital marketing to optimise business opportunities during lockdown and beyond:
Boost your social media presence
During this time, lots of people are spending large sections of their time on social media such as Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. If you don’t already have these accounts set up, make sure you get them set up and plan out a content strategy. For restaurants that are open for deliveries, this could be simply advertising the menu and how to place orders, posts with pictures of the dishes etc.
For businesses that have not been able to open, social media can be used to strengthen relationships with customers, by providing useful information and having interactions such as polls, requesting to tag friends, competitions where prizes can be claimed when the business is open, for example.
Optimise Local SEO
It is becoming clear that many people will choose to shop locally more often and feel more strongly about supporting local businesses once the lockdown lifts and therefore it is important that businesses are set up to leverage local SEO. Firstly, by claiming and updating your Google My Business page but also optimise your website pages for the search terms people will use to find your business. For example, ‘hairdressers in Swindon’ is likely to be a popular search phrase people will use in Google to find a hairdresser in the locality of Swindon, so your content should include that phrase and some variations.
Consider PPC advertising
Pay Per Click advertising can be very successful in generating leads, so if you have not had time to look into this type of digital marketing yet, now could be the ideal time to do some research and see how well it works in your specific industry. People are often put off the idea of PPC due to the cost, but in most cases it will deliver a very good ROI (return on investment).
These are just a few of the ways you can boost your digital marketing strategy to help to ensure your business has more leads and other opportunities going forward.