Key areas of focus to help your business survive the pandemic

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By Henry Brown

2020 has been a difficult year for most businesses. The coronavirus and Covid-19 pandemic was entirely unprecedented and very few people were prepared to deal with its consequences from many angles, maintaining a business being just one of them.

Over the past few months, many of us have learned that we’re going to have to dramatically alter the way that we are used to doing things to help minimize the spread of the virus and to get through this pandemic in good shape. In regards to business, this could have included reducing staff numbers, encouraging staff to work on a remote basis, implementing social distancing and hygiene measures in spaces where staff have to continue to work and much more.

There are going to have to be many areas you focus on more now than you usually might. Here are a few that you should begin to work on!

Staff happiness

We are all well aware that happy employees are more productive. Your staff may currently be experiencing low levels of morale due to the pandemic. Many people are experiencing difficulties due to isolating themselves, being unable to spend time with those they may want to, struggling with having less options of things to do and more. You don’t want their work to further deflate their spirit, place them under extra stress and pressure or to cause them to experience other negative emotions.

It’s up to you to make sure that your staff is at least happy while they are working. This may feel difficult given current circumstances, but small acts of competence and kind gestures can make all the difference. First, make sure that your employees are paid on time by using small business payroll services. All too many businesses are paying their staff late during this pandemic. Reasons include being too busy with other areas of keeping your business afloat and forgetting or not finding time to carry out payroll on time. Some businesses are even holding back paying money because they feel they don’t have it available or because they want to use it in other areas of the business briefly. None of these reasons are acceptable. You need to pay your staff on time so they can pay their bills in turn.

Other areas of staff happiness include being flexible with staff if they need, keeping in touch with remote staff to ensure they’re coping well and to maintain a sense of team spirit and much more. If you’re wondering where you can improve, send out a staff survey that can be completed anonymously. This will give staff a chance to let you know where they can be helped, what support they would like and what general actions the business could take to keep them happier.

Marketing

Marketing may seem like an expense when funds are running low, but it’s a necessary expense. The consumer market is hard to sell to at the moment. With mass job loss, redundancies, reduce working hours and reduced pay being experienced far and wide across most demographics, people are more reluctant to spend the money that they do have on non-essentials. Very few people are going to hand over the little spare cash they have of their own accord without any encouragement. If you want to make sales, you’re really going to have to push for them, making people aware of what you have to sell and displaying it in its best light. This is where marketing comes into play.

Marketing can help to advertise and sell your goods, even during these difficult times. If you have a marketing department, keep them on board. If you don’t, consider outsourcing to a third party who can take care of all of your marketing for you! Make sure to focus on all areas of marketing that are applicable to your business and your target demographic. This could mean focusing on pay per click advertising, Google advertising, social media advertising, collaborating with social media influencers and much more. There’s a lot of scope out there.

One thing to note is that print marketing isn’t all too good an investment right now. Fewer people are spending a whole lot of time outside of their houses, so billboards, posters, flyers and other traditional advertising methods are less likely to catch their attention. For now, digital is the way to go!

Sure, times are tough. But by focusing on the above areas, you should be able to do something towards keeping your business afloat!

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Henry Brown is an online marketing executive. When he isn’t talking shop, he’s roaming the streets of London, uncovering the extra-ordinary in the ordinary.

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