How to Pivot Your Marketing During COVID-19

The COVID-19 pandemic has touched everyone. It has changed how we work and how we do business. The virus has affected personal habits. It has modified how we spend our time now that we’ve been spending so much more of it at home.

In the face of all this change, you must also pivot your marketing during COVID-19.

If you don’t, you’re wasting your valuable time and resources.

There are four essential categories to consider as you figure out how to pivot your marketing during COVID-19 to be most effective.

1. Find New Ways to Reach Your Market

Your marketing must reach your customers and prospects where they are. Right now, they are in their homes and often in front of a computer or mobile device.

Industry data shows that people are doing more online research of brands and items that they are interested in buying. They’re initiating sales conversations. They’re looking for solutions.

You must make sure they can find you wherever they’re looking.

They’re looking on search engines. Are they able to find you? Or does your search engine optimization need work?

They’re looking on social media. How is your social media strategy? Are you posting thoughtful content that shows how you solve their problem? Are you strategically becoming part of their story of how they got through this time?

And it’s not just prospects that you need to reach. It’s also vitally important to stay top of mind with your existing customers, clients, and patients.

Are you reaching them with email marketing? Text marketing? If not, now is a good time to pivot and start.

2. Find New Ways to Generate Leads Online

People are at home and online more than ever right now. Do you have systems in place to capture their contact information so you can follow up with them once they find you? Do you offer live chat or other ways for a prospect to interact with you and ask questions?

Is there something you can offer for free — a webinar, checklist, cheat sheet, quiz, video, special report, etc. — in exchange for someone’s email address?

You need a way to continue the conversation once they’ve found you online. You can turn your website visitors into leads, and then into new customers, clients, and patients. But you must be intentional about it. You have to guide and control the process.

Now is the time to explore the many ways to generate leads online. Now is the time to make these strategies work for you.

3. Find New Ways to Communicate Your Message

You must find ways to frame your message within our new collective COVID-19 experience. Now more than ever it’s important to be sensitive and to build trust and goodwill.

For example, I suggest being transparent about how your business is reacting to COVID-19 to keep staff and customers safe … and what that means to your customer experience.

Are you working from home, which adds a bit of a delay to your response time? Have you adjusted your hours? Have you maintained “business as usual” but with additional safety measures like masks and/or other protective gear?

Don’t leave it to your customers to wonder and guess. Tell them.

In this time of fear and uncertainty, be positive and uplifting. Share inspirational stories. Be the light in the darkness. Show that you’re in this with them. Show that you care.

4. Find New Ways to Add Value

Now is a good time to develop strategic partnerships that will bring more value to your clients, customers, and patients.

For example, a local winery, restaurant, and florist teamed up to provide Mother’s Day brunch packages to their clients. Each business marketed the 3-piece package deal to their own customer base, which means each business reached two new sets of customers.

And they all sold more than they would have alone to just their own customers.

Perhaps you can team up with someone who offers a complementary service that your clients need and add value by giving them access to additional resources.

An example of this would be the business attorney I know who partners with an accounting firm and payroll company to present workshops for business owners trying to figure out how to comply with guidelines for the various government loan programs.

Are there free resources you can share … or perhaps create … to add value to the people you serve?

How You Pivot Your Marketing During COVID-19 Will Shape Your Future

The pivots you make to your marketing during COVID-19 can help your business survive the pandemic. Not only that, they will shape how you come out of it.

Perhaps you’ll implement strategies and develop systems that you’ve had on the back burner for a while that will make you even more efficient. Maybe you’ll start something brand new that makes your marketing even stronger and more effective going forward.

Now is the time to thoughtfully consider your options. It is the time to be proactive. To pivot.

These may be uncertain times, but you don’t have to be uncertain about your marketing. You’re not alone. We’re here to help. Call us today!