How to Market Your Small Business During Coronavirus Pandemic

GUEST BLOG INTRODUCTION: Just as business was gradually opening up a bit, new Coronavirus cases have increased dramatically worldwide. Marketing advice for small businesses trying to navigate this unprecedented territory is extremely important. We thank our guest blogger, Kally Tay, for her insights. Having more than 20 years as a manager in various industries, she founded a career website to help others to thrive in their jobs. Featured on numerous platforms such as WordPress Editor’s Pick and AllWomensTalk, her website MiddleMe.net discusses difficult and sensitive issues like workplace abuse and discord among coworkers while providing practical advice on how to handle those situations. We encourage you to read more about her in her bio.

The coronavirus pandemic has definitely changed the way many businesses conduct their business. They are now forced to try out several strategies to help them keep afloat, especially now that people are not going out to shop due to the fear of the virus.

Small businesses have it rough most of all because they have limited options available to guide them through the pandemic. Fortunately, these options are enough for small businesses to create an effective marketing strategy for their business to remain afloat even during this crisis.

To help you out, here are some ways on how you can do it in the most efficient way:

Always Focus On Open Communication

Maintaining an open communication with clients has always been a major marketing strategy for businesses even before the pandemic. It is a way to show customers that they are open for business and can assist with their daily needs.

But, with the pandemic changing the way businesses do business, having an active and open communication can help customers know you are still available for clients. Keep your customers updated through social media, text and even through your website and let them know what services you have to offer. You can even post your contact details on Google’s My Business Directory so people can search you more easily if they need a certain product or services.

Show How You Can Help During This Pandemic

When you are showcasing your business to customers, they don’t look at the promises you offer them. They remember you with the services and products that you offer. Since they can’t see your products and services in person because of the pandemic, you can show that your services and products still matter during this time.

To do this, spotlight the products and services that can help improve customer lives during this pandemic. Be honest and sincere when doing your campaign and provide discounts for frontliners and anyone working in the field in your area.

Check Out Your Loyal Customers

Got loyal customers who always check your products and services? If you do, do they know that you are still in business despite the pandemic. If they don’t know you are open, how can you rake in sales and stop them from trying out other brands that offer the same stuff as you do?

Check out your loyal customer database and reach out to them through social media or email. Since the pandemic has closed down many businesses, competition is not very fierce and you can use this opportunity to ramp up your brand for new users. Use the time wisely and you can definitely rake in these clients easily to your midst.

Put The Customer First

In business, the adage “the customer is always right” is a constant thing that must be followed religiously. During this time of pandemic, it opens up a great opportunity for your business to reach out to your customers and see how they are doing.

Since people are not allowed out, especially those who are vulnerable to the disease, they depend on businesses and other content creators to give them something to look forward to. They use the content to alleviate their fears and also pass the time because they exhausted everything they can do at home.

With this in mind, you can give your customers tips on how they can use their time wisely at home with the help of the products or services you have to offer. You can also offer advice on other things related to your business that your customers may not have realized before. For example, if you are offering your accountant services before, you can put in advice on your website regarding how they can save money even while at home.

Boost Your Social Media Presence

For several small businesses, it is no longer plausible for customers to visit you in your brick and mortar stores because of social distancing and other coronavirus prevention measures. If you want to keep people still checking out your offerings, you will need to find other ways to sell your product or services.

Social media is a great place to do this, especially now that people are looking online for everything they need. Customers can check your social media pages for what you offer and reach out if you need it. However, if your social media page isn’t up-to-date or your campaign strategy is all wrong, then it can be hard to get the conversion you need to make a profit. Look into how you update your social media and provide credible information that visitors need. If you stay consistent with your brand and offer relevant information, visitors will definitely check your brand often and peruse your products and services.

Use Your Creative Mind To Think Of New Ideas

With many people now stuck at home and running out of things to do, it is a great way for small businesses to offer solutions to this problem.

You can start selling things like coloring kits or startup planting kits for customers to use on their idle time or offer tutorials on how to photo edit or produce the next big viral hit. It doesn’t have to be related to your business. So long as it can help customers pass the time, it is a great way to get people to remember your business.

Stay Flexible And Learn To Adapt

If you want to market your small business during the coronavirus pandemic, it is important that you remain flexible. You can never tell what will happen next during this pandemic and you need to be on your toes for any changes that may affect your business. Learn how to adapt with these changes and be as flexible as you can for your customers who may need your services during this time.

It is unclear as to when things will go back to normal and for small businesses, this uncertainty can be disturbing. However, utilizing the best strategy available, like the ones above, can definitely make a difference and reduce the losses your business may be having due to the pandemic. See which of these tips above can help you and faithfully cultivate them because when you do, you will see things improve gradually.

Time to Rebrand?

As Bob Dylan wrote, “The Times They Are A-Changin’ . . . ” and will likely never be the same. Society cannot go through the kind of dislocations experienced during the current pandemic without being fundamentally altered, though in ways that may ultimately turn out to be good. (For example: During the global quarantine, scientific studies showed that the amount of pollution – especially in hotspots – decreased significantly.)

Hopefully, we have learned many positive lessons during this international “time-out” and developed a new openness to change.

Necessity may have changed your product or service . . . perhaps in a good way.

During this period of quarantine, perhaps (1) your business had to be closed; (2) you remained open but strictly as an Internet/Takeout-Delivery operation; or (3) you were designated as essential to survival and kept going as best you could under adverse circumstances. Regardless of the category that applies to you, your business will have changed during this time.

Once the crisis has ended, business owners will be faced with deciding whether some of the changes should become permanent ones. (For example, you learned that a segment of your operations could be conducted on-line. Do you try to revert to old ways . . . OR do you capitalize on what you learned and maintain or grow your Internet activities – recognizing an opportunity for immediate profit as well as a hedge against a future need to run your business in a state of emergency?)

With changes of the kind we are discussing comes a need for you to consider whether you must also now REBRAND.

REBRANDING

Over the years, I’ve probably been involved in a half dozen or more different rebranding exercises. Some were very necessary AND major, including top to bottom name, logo, byline, etc. adjustments while others were more minor and amounted to some after-the-fact tweaking of branding elements rather than new names and identities.

How do you know when the time has come? You certainly know when:

Your product and/or service is no longer clearly or accurately represented by the brand.
Your branding no longer resonates with your customers. (You may learn of this need by asking via a formal survey or focus group . . . or you may recognize that a problem exists because your customers no longer remember or relate to your name, logo, or product.)
A change of ownership occurs. (Perhaps your old name is no longer applicable or perhaps your new owner has a well-known name you want to promote. For instance . . . when Berkshire Hathaway purchased my employer in 2012, we wanted to make the name of our parent part of our own name so their branding qualities also became ours. While various permissions and legal ramifications must be addressed first, the results justify the effort.)
A new product or service has been added that you want to promote or a secondary activity has now become primary and dominant.
Sales suggest your current brand just is not working well enough.

So . . . how extensive a rebrand is required? For instance:

Is a name change required? If yes, do you want the new name to reflect the old name . . . or be entirely new. (For example, many years ago, the company that employed me was known as “The GUARD Network.” That name was chosen with the expectation of developing a diverse list of products that served many different industries. When that did not happen and the organization dealt strictly with insurance, the name became a bit of a handicap because people couldn’t tell what the company did. The decision was made to add the word insurance, but all parties believed the word GUARD communicated the right branding qualities of security and protection. As a result, the company became GUARD Insurance Group.
Is a new or modified logo needed? When a name changes in a significant way, a new logo is probably required. However, a logo might be changed or tweaked independent of the name. At that same prior employer, our logo was finetuned multiple times across a five-year period – always including a GUARD icon so the benefit of past branding could be maintained . . . but gradually simplifying that image, which became broader and a bit more abstract over time. For an interesting look at the evolution of some famous logos over time (as well as information on debranding), check out Debranding: The Future of Branding.
By-line? A change of by-line is another way to communicate an important adjustment without necessarily scrapping the investment made over time to your logo. (For Example, a restaurant that had started to feature delivery and take-out might start including that information as part of a new by-line – “Take out/eat in.”

Sometimes, the need for a rebrand is obvious . . . and I suspect that will often be the case post-pandemic. If you are not sure about the necessity, take the time to do some research with current and potential customers. In addition to evaluating the necessity, you might learn some useful tips about the correct measures needed to rebrand successfully.

Make No Mistake . . . Rebranding Comes at a Cost

Some of the expenses associated with a rebrand are obvious:

The cost of performing research (surveys, focus groups, etc.)
Cost of reprinting materials with the new logo
Signage changes to reflect the new name
Programming expense associated with changes to the branding elements in the computer system
Cost of promoting the new name via advertising, mailings, and promotional giveaways
Etc., etc., etc. (The list can keep going on and on.)

However, the less obvious costs must also be considered. For example:

Lost labor. Staff time associated with name change activities as opposed to normal duties is an expense.
Lost investment in the old branding. If you succeed in cleverly linking the past and present, perhaps some of that investment will be salvaged. If not – if a total break from the past seems advisable for some extreme reason – your effort in accumulated time and money will be totally lost.

Conclusion

Right now, we are still in the middle of a global health and financial crisis . . . so post-pandemic thoughts may seem somewhat premature. Still, we wanted to introduce this kind of thinking now so you can subconsciously collect information as you go along that might prove useful in the future. When that day comes, we have a number of blog postings that may be very helpful to you. Be sure to revisit “Building Blocks: The Beginning.”

The above illustration highlights just a few of the relevant topics worth reviewing.

Good luck. Stay safe.

If you have any questions or comments on this topic, we’d love to hear from you. Scroll down to the comments section at the bottom of this page.

Weathering the Storm

As a small business owner, this virus will hit hard. When sales stop, so, too, does our income. In most cases, bills will continue to flow in.

Yes, I will consider myself extremely lucky if all my friends and family survive this pandemic.

Financial health would be some lovely icing.

The Small Business Association has a lot of great resources for this situation . . . from Coronavirus funding option to local assistance: https://www.sba.gov/page/coronavirus-covid-19-small-business-guidance-loan-resources

A lot of other wonderful and necessary business accommodations, information, and tools are available as well, but the focus of this blog will be about creativity. As the saying goes, “When one door closes, another opens.” The lesser known continuation of the quote is “. . . we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us.” In this terrible situation, I challenge you to look for another door through which you can temporarily rebrand your business.

Some business alterations are more obvious in this new climate. Restaurants are open for takeout and offering free “contactless” delivery. Retail stores are encouraging “retail therapy” from home and also offering free delivery.

Some business have had to get a little more creative. A few examples to help inspire your creative thinking include . . .

Craft stores are offering instructions on how to DIY face masks and hand sanitizers.

Gyms are offering virtual classes.

Real estate agents are offering virtual tours.

Some entrepreneurs are investing a portion of their reserves in the stock market, betting on the long game.

Stationery businesses are designing invitations for virtual celebrations.

Charities are hosting virtual auctions.

Some business that simply cannot function now are offering their customers discounts for booking their product/service in advance.

Home improvement stores are providing instructions for DIY projects around the house – since most people are spending more time at home these days.

A blog that strives to help entrepreneurs create and develop their corporate identity is now focusing on crisis communications and rebranding opportunities. (Ya, that one’s us.)

I hope offering a handful of business Coronavirus coping strategies sparked your inner innovator.

Remember . . . “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent. It is the one that is most adaptable to change.” (Charles Darwin)

Good luck. Stay safe.