Now is an undoubtedly challenging time for most people and most businesses. As a social media agency with a wide variety of clients, we’ve seen a spectrum of response plans. While our agency is fully operational with a remote team, it’s important that we’re supporting our clients as best we can. In this post, we’re going to look at the four main ways we’re doing this.
Social and digital support for clients
Home broadband use has surged since the outbreak of the pandemic, with providers claiming between a 50% and 70% uplift. Working from home, endlessly scrolling the news and social media are the main culprits. Social media never stops but if your business is impacted by a global pandemic, your priorities may change.
Some businesses are unaffected from a financial and/or operational perspective. Some businesses, such as Amazon, supermarkets, delivery services and producers of essential household items to name a few, are thriving. Many businesses, however, are enduring their most challenging times as the economy slows and many sectors virtually shut down.
But necessity is the mother of invention and businesses who are willing and able are evolving their companies to a position of strength.
There are two ends of the spectrum for businesses who are being hit negatively by the pandemic.
At one end, businesses are battening down the hatches, ceasing all activity as best they can and hoping the whole thing blows over whilst they still have a business left. For some, this is the only option they have.
At the other end, businesses are using this time as an opportunity to change the way they work, streamline processes or develop new products and services.
With both approaches, we’re working closely with our clients to help them build for a prosperous future. Here are the four main ways we’re helping our clients through these challenging times.
Ways we’re helping our clients
Keeping business going
For many businesses, they’re still able to operate and deliver their products and services. Maybe this is at a reduced level, but now is not the time to quell the marketing effort. With people spending more time online, social media is the perfect marketing medium through which to support a company’s sales. Reducing marketing activity will only serve to worsen the impact of the crisis.
Explore new opportunities
We’ve been busy helping our clients explore new ways of reaching their audience. This includes moving some of their services online so they can provide them even when physical distancing rules are in place. Creating digital products such as value-adding PDF downloads has been another popular option to show off their expertise and build an email database. We’ve given clients ideas of new products they could launch, specifically for remote working teams or targeting consumers spending more time at home.
Preparing for lift-off
For the event and hospitality sectors, the epidemic has brought everything to a halt. But, there will come a time when pubs, bars and restaurants are back open. Many of those events will be rearranged and go ahead as planned, just like Tokyo 2021. Businesses affected by this hiatus must be in a position to capitalise on the re-launch. Maintaining contact with customers and developing a plan of action for lift-off is key.
Making improvements for the long term
Now might be the perfect time to invest in the things you never seem able to get round to doing. We’ve been helping up-skill our network through training, webinars and recommending useful resources. We’ve also been busy creating banks of timeless content for our clients such as blog content and graphics and videos for their social channels. Website improvements such as page redesigns or building landing pages have seen a boost, too.
Read this for the full list of online improvements you can make.
We also put together a free webinar all about growing your network during lockdown. We realised that meeting new people and finding new opportunities became limited for businesses that relied on in-person networking. In this webinar, we look at several effective tactics to keep building your contacts lists.
Some examples of progress
B2B to B2C switch
For one catering client whose B2B clients have virtually all stopped trading, they’re able to sell directly to consumers. We’ve been able to pivot from LinkedIn lead-generation to running Facebook ads.
Offering remote working support
For a consultancy that specialises in building effective management teams, we have helped support the creation and promotion of a new remote working support service. This has involved creating effective landing pages and Google Ads campaigns to promote the new offering. Setting up the webpages and digital campaign quickly enabled them to receive enquiries from global brands ahead of their competitors.
Government-approved service
A clinic offering travel vaccinations, for whom we are promoting alternative services including their government-approved way in which they are treating patients right now.
Shift to high-growth area
For our work with a law firm whose conveyancing work has slowed down but family law has sped up, we are ensuring all efforts are focused on family law (Google Ads, Facebook ads, mailshots) to let people know they are ready to help.
Some of the changes we experienced in 2020 will have a long-lasting impact. Even when everything is “back to normal” it will be a new normal. Thanks for reading and stay safe!
