How to Successfully Market Your Business During the Coronavirus Crisis

The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic is putting pressure on businesses at every level. Small businesses are going under at a rapid pace, and the impact is only going to amplify. The actions you take now will determine whether or not your company survives or is another casualty of the virus. This article is to meant to help guide businesses, entrepreneurs and freelancers to adapt during these turbulent times.

Here’s the reality: half of all working people in the United States work for or own a small business. On average, companies with fewer than 500 employees have less than one month’s worth of cash reserves. — Source via NPR

For every business, the challenges presented by the coronavirus will be unique, as will be the solutions. Only a small percentage of companies will be able to pivot and remain profitable. For those that have the resources and capacity to adapt, they must do so immediately.

For background and context, I own and operate a digital marketing agency. We specialize in helping companies grow — generating leads and sales. I’m sharing the following manifesto to give insights into the mindset and high-level strategies that I’m applying for my clients, with the hope that other companies and individuals can incorporate these ideas into their approach in order to find the resiliency needed during this challenging time.

I’m sensitive to those who cannot continue with their advertising and marketing efforts. And I feel your pain. The majority of the information I share below can be applied to a scrappy grassroots marketing effort. For companies who are already going into debt as a result of the crisis, I would suggest looking at financial assistance from the SBA or similar organization in your location and applying early.

For those with reserves and the means to take action, now is the time.

A Manifesto for Marketing During The Pandemic

Be A Fear-less Leader. Your employees, staff, team members, family, and friends need your leadership. It’s okay to be anxious and worried, do not ignore those healthy feelings, but also find ways to fear less. Breathe. Do the activities that help you keep your peace. Practice being a beacon of stability during this time.

Move Quickly. You’re in a race against time. Forced shut down of all non-essential businesses are rolling out in New York State and in San Francisco, so get ready to assess your business and make decisions as quickly as possible.

Out With The Old. It’s no longer business as usual. What was once a successful product, service, marketing channel, or even target audience is likely to change. Be ready to make the adjustments necessary to keep your business alive.

Assess The Financials. Before you redefine your strategy sit down and evaluate the state of your business’s financial situation right now. Where is the business likely to take a hit, where can resources be reallocated, etc. Next, you’ll set your target numbers, revenue, KPI’s, and benchmarks to measure against.

Serve Value. Despite the dire situation you may be facing, your duty to your customers and prospects is to be of service. What problem can you solve at this time, what burden can you ease for your audience? Herein lies the secret to selling at this time, deliver massive value, and sales will follow.

Take Care of Your Current Customers First. This should go without saying. Do all that you can to serve value first to your existing customer base. The same value you serve them, you’ll likely be able to use as the offer you promote in the market.

Nail Your (New) Audience, Offer, and Messaging. Before you create an action plan or run any campaigns, you need to:

• Define your audience on a granular level
• Establish a compelling and truly valuable offer
• Develop the messaging that will connect both logically and emotionally
• Map your nurturing process and adjust it as things unfold

What may have felt like an appropriate broadcast communication one day, may not resonate or be applicable depending on the current status of the coronavirus situation.

Rule Of One. Identify the singular objective you want to impact and focus all your marketing efforts on that one objective. Be laser-focused on:

• One objective
• One primary goal
• One offer
• One message
• One advertising or marketing channel
• One marketing funnel
• One target audience

As a business/owner you may be thinking it would be great to continue to have the phone ring, a stream of inquiry emails, as well as regular referrals coming in. But in the face of a crisis, you need to select only one objective and streamline your marketing efforts to have a real impact. Don’t spread your efforts thin, as they say, “do one thing really well.”

Don’t Stop Selling. The key here is to change how you sell, this may mean to who, what, why, and how. Now is the time to generate sales, in case you are impacted more drastically than anticipated.

Stockpile Leads. Just as you are stocking up on resources for your home, your business is no different. Now is the time to stockpile leads! Your pipeline needs to be active. Keep leads warm (be there for them, serve value, build goodwill), and once we’re all on the other side of this, you can progress things to a sales conversation.

Strategy After Assessment. Your new campaigns will only be successful if you’ve taken the time to nail down the items above. Don’t put the cart before the horse. Until you have the elements above crystal clear, do not attempt to form your strategy.

Monitor And Be Ready To Pivot. This rule applies in times of stability. In times of turbulence, you’ll need to monitor your campaigns more carefully, measure against the benchmarks and KPI’s you’ve set, and be ready to adjust and or optimize your tactics.

Run The Numbers Again (And Again). Let your data and customer feedback determine where the opportunities are and where to place your efforts. Map a clear financial picture of your business under a variety of scenarios and have a marketing action plan for each.

Ask For Help. Offer Help. Do not be too proud to ask for help, that may come in many forms. Whenever possible, offer help to those in need. Explore partnerships with other businesses, we’re all in this together and collaborating with other businesses may keep you both alive.

More On How To Adapt

To adapt you need to intimately understand your audience, their needs, and align your business to serve them at this time. Then assess how to adjust your offering to solve their problem.

You will also likely need to adapt your operations, supply chain, labor force etc. Here is a real-world example from China, who now seems to be on the road to recovery:

In China, where they were hard hit during the crisis, companies shifted their sales channel mix. A cosmetics company Lin Qingxuan was forced to close 40% of its stores. The company took its 100+ beauty advisors from the closed stores and placed them in roles as online influencers using digital tools such as WeChat, to connect with customers virtually and promote online sales. This pivot resulted in a 200% increase in growth in sales in Wuhan alone compared to the previous year.

For smaller businesses and freelancers who are most vulnerable at this time, here are some ideas you can look to for inspiration:

1. Companies that relied on tradeshows and conferences to reach their audiences are now going digital. Using webinars, virtual summits, and online sales presentations.
2. Within the fitness industry, gyms and personal trainers are now offering live streaming of classes and workouts to those who can afford to continue their memberships.
3. Nightlife establishments have provided live stream events sponsored by major alcohol brands. The revenue from the sponsorship provides a much needed cash injection.
4. Health care professionals and wellness practitioners professionals are providing telemedicine services.
5. Freelancers with specialized knowledge and skills are creating information products and courses for sale online.
6. Brick and mortar businesses are preselling gift certificates and credits at a discounted rate. Not a complete solution obviously, but it may help cover a few bills.

Reaching Your Audience

Regardless of how you adapt, it won’t make a difference if you can’t effectively and affordably reach your audience. I always recommend going where your audience is already, in this scenario, it’s almost always going to be online and social media — soon there will be nowhere else to go.

The most effective means to reach them is through paid ads, and if you have a meaningful offer and your messaging dialed in, then you can build a campaign that converts. Organic traffic and social reach yields extremely low visibility under the best of circumstances. It’s going to be even more challenging at this time with the elevated activity.

I advocate for paid advertising, building one funnel, which can be thought of as your customer journey if the salesy nature of a marketing funnel puts you off. The bottom line is you do need to pay to reach and convert your audience at the scale that will keep the lights on and your staff paid.

Additional insights for marketing during a recession or time of crisis such as this:

1. The cost of advertising tends to drop during a crisis, allowing a window of opportunity to stockpile leads and acquire warm prospects for a significantly lower price. At the time of writing, our clients and reports from industry leaders are seeing CPR, CPC drop, or stay the same. In some cases, CPL is dropping significantly, as much as 78% from the previous month in one of our client's campaigns while the lead volume is up 348%.
2. The ability to capture mind/market share increases. As a result, future sales also stand to increase. This is due to a reduction in ad spend and marketing “noise” as competitors drop out.
3. Hold the line. Remain active in your communications across all channels, projecting stability as a company at this time.

Author's Note

It is my hope, as a small business owner myself, that this manifesto provides value and direction so that your business can make it through this ever-shifting and challenging time. If, at the very least, this has given you optimism about the future than I am grateful.

My team and I are working on a Free resource: Thrive in Turbulent Times Marketing Playbook. In it, we provide in-depth resources, strategy, and campaign roadmaps to guide you. If you would like a copy you can RSVP at www.thethriveplaybook.com/waitlist, release date is April 6th.

If you are a business who wants to implement a focused strategy and leverage the above system to enable predictable lead and sales generation I’m happy to provide a strategy audit to qualifying companies. I’ve only scratched the surface here, so if you have any questions you can reach out to me directly at justin@digitalmoonwalk.com.

I will be updating this article as we gather more data and insights from having boots on the ground.

To your resilience!

Justin Shaw