Image by Darwin Laganzon from Pixabay
By Allison Murphy
While the pandemic is threatening the survival of small businesses, digital marketing paves an opportunity to make ends meet. With most people spending time indoors, online activity is on the rise. According to preliminary statistics, total internet hits have surged by between 50% and 70%, during the pandemic.
Internet marketing remains the best way to reach your target audience. Plus it’s a cost-effective channel to generate leads for your small business. Here are some impactful digital marketing strategies that can help you stay afloat during the COVID-19 crisis.
Create a landing page or a single page website
As a small business, there is a possibility that you don’t already have a website. A good strategy is to create a quick landing page or a single page website that communicates the audience about your business. A landing page is an excellent tool to get your audience to fill in their contact details. This way, you can build up a contact list of potential customers. Keep interacting with your email list by sending them product details, offers, and news from your business. You don’t need a big budget to build a landing page for your business. You can make use of a free tool like Mailchimp’s landing page builder or Leadsurance’s landing page with a chatbot, and you’re ready to roll.
Connect with prospects on social media
Social media platforms like Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram offer you to connect with your prospective customers. In these times of distress, you can help your potential customers by understanding the challenges they’re facing. Join Facebook groups in your industry and your community to help other businesses and professionals. This is a time to build relationships with people.
Another good strategy to connect with prospective customers is to share valuable content on social media channels. Share solutions to existing problems, and this will help you create lasting bonds with your potential buyers.
Run paid ad campaigns
No worries if you don’t have a big team or a whole lot of resources to market your small business. You can run paid campaigns on a host of platforms, including Google, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, and YouTube. It’s easy to share your product details through a bunch of photos or a video or a landing page. Add a compelling call-to-action that conveys the USP of your products or services.
As a small business owner, you can start running a paid campaign with a few dollars per day of ad budget. Isn’t that fantastic? Paid ads give you a chance to convert strangers into customers, and expand the reach of your business in no time. During this time of crisis, a large percentage of your prospects are active on social media platforms. Set up a paid campaign by choosing your target audience and budget, and it will surely help you get your sales numbers off the ground.
Optimize your website for search
Since everyone’s glued to their screens, search traffic has shot up drastically. Get found online, and you have higher chances of getting new customers. Once you have a website in place, make sure you optimize it for search engines.
-Audit your website and fix it for all types of technical issues such as load speed and URL structure.
-Infuse industry-relevant keywords into your website copy.
-Make sure you’re publishing search-friendly content in the form of blog posts, infographics, and videos.
-Create a Google My Business profile to achieve higher rankings for local search queries.
Be consistent about getting your website to rank on Google’s search result pages – it’s a vital digital marketing tactic during the COVID-19 crisis.
Embrace a virtual sales strategy
The Pandemic has ensured that you can’t meet your customers offline. Face-to-face presentations are now moving online. As a small business, you can make use of free tools like Zoom, Google Meet, and Skype to present your services to buyers. The immediate need during COVID-19 is to have a virtual-first selling strategy – this will help you to add more value to a customer looking to buy from you.
-Check out some resources to understand how to handle virtual meetings more effectively.
-Understand how to be more empathetic with customers communicating with you through an online platform.
-Don’t hard sell – this is a time when you need to be nice with your buyers. Get to know them well and try to understand their current set of challenges.
Creating a virtual meeting room will help you to become a Covid-19 conscious business – certainly an advantage in this crisis situation.
Final thoughts
These are unprecedented times and you need to work harder, if you’re looking to ensure that your small business survives the rut. Experiment with different digital marketing techniques to know which one is working best for your business. The good part is that you don’t have to invest a big part of your surplus funds into promoting your business online. Tread carefully and be creative – you’ll surely find that your business can indeed, survive the pandemic.
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Allison Murphy is a digital marketing specialist and business development rep for Leadsurance an insurance marketing company. She writes about business, marketing, and InsureTech topics and can be found on the Leadsurance Blog.
