Are you wondering how you can regain the business you might have lost recently? Is it a good idea to pause your marketing campaigns for now and restart them in the future once things regain normalcy?

In this article, we address such concerns for small businesses while sharing some of the best tips and advice in this regard. Read on!

Digital Marketing: Basic Tips and Advice to Get Your Small Business Through the Tough Times

Tip #1: Stay Operational and Innovate

No doubt many small businesses might’ve thought recently, “Well, let’s just bury our heads in the sand now that everything’s looking difficult to handle. There’s not a lot we can do about it.” But have you considered bringing your business to a direct-to-consumer world? This would involve taking consumerisation of the enterprise to the next level and perhaps creating a self-serve experience along with a consultative sales model.

Therefore, it may be worthwhile to make your offerings accessible and consumable over the internet. Experience-as-a-service (XaaS) is the revolutionary business model that countless companies are switching to in order to adapt to the COVID-era and make their businesses even more scalable.

In fact, that’s exactly how one of our clients in the corporate events industry formulated a new business offering, which is an interactive online streaming platform for virtual conferences, within just a week after the lockdown was announced and most of the in-person events and gatherings got cancelled. Then, we worked with them to launch a new search marketing campaign, publish new pay-per-click ads for it, and drove traffic to a brand new landing page which we designed for this unique business offering. The result has been nothing short of a business breakthrough!

Another great example is an accountancy firm we work with, who kept in touch with their clients by publishing a lot of useful information related to the coronavirus and the business grants being offered by the government. Subsequently, we worked with them to launch another pay-per-click campaign, driving targeted traffic to a landing page that offered the users looking for such information free access to accountants who are located nearby. This helped bring in new inquiries and new leads for their business.

However, breakthroughs like these won’t have been possible if they decided to pause their marketing campaigns and surrender to fear and uncertainty.

Tip #2: Leverage the Digital Marketing Opportunities That Are Opening Up Now

Perhaps you have already read on LinkedIn and other online publications about the digital marketing opportunities that have recently started showing up, especially for small businesses. For example, in the case of Google ads, the cost-per-click in most industries has dove through the floor now, since most of the competition has decided to pause their ads for now. Or you can use the new and emerging trend of website visitor recognition and start tracking companies who visited your website. Smart business owners will tap into opportunities like these and leverage them while they still can.

Tip #3: Add More Value

Since the majority of us aren’t looking to spend more or sign new contracts at the moment, it’s very much about offering added value to your customers as well. It’s less about pitching your products or services to them, and more about communicating, or at least adding some sort of value – even if it takes sending out a couple of emails, calling your clients, and actually sharing with them free any added-value services that you find could benefit them.

Upselling to existing customers can be easier (and cheaper!) than acquiring new ones, as there’s an existing relationship you can make use of.

Tip #4: Let Them Know You’re Operational

Your customers are probably consuming a lot of content as of now, since they’re not as busy or distracted as they were previously. This is why it’s more important than ever to make sure that your existing client base, and your previous one, knows that you are still operating or aren’t, or at reduced service capacity.

Tip #5: Dominate Local Search by Claiming and Optimising Your Google Business Listing

These are one of the easiest wins for most businesses, but still, something which is underrated and a lot of businesses don’t pay much attention to. The ones that use them really well are usually working with an SEO agency, because SEO experts know the true value of them.

Reach out to your customers and request them to post their testimonials on your Google Business Listing. When people look up your business on Google, the more positive reviews you have and higher the rating of your business listing, the more likely it will become for your business to capture them as a lead and eventually as a customer.

Final Thoughts

Now is your opportunity to think through how you’d like to showcase your company through whichever digital media channels that you feel are appropriate for your business. Take the time to determine and seize every available opportunity that will prepare your business to survive, thrive, and come back even stronger in the times to come.