The world has turned upside down. With company closures, layoffs and a shutdown economy, business are thinking for new ways to approach customers.

As reality sets in, this crisis is an indication of how we are seeing the future.

Be Empathetic When Promoting Your Brand

See this pandemic through the eyes of others- not just yours.

Public relations is necessary to help with brand presence when sales are down. With the current health crisis underway, now is not the time for press releases. It’s about building your social media and staying relevant to your audience. People always remember the ways you engaged with them in a time of crisis.

The narrative of your communications must fit the current environment to what’s happening in the world today. Companies must be careful not to exploit the current health crisis to promote their brand.

Your marketing budget most likely has decreased due to the lack of sales. Don’t stand down but rather stand up.

There may be less competition out there right now. There could be opportunities to stay ahead of the herd for those that have fallen behind. Helping others is a great way to find hidden opportunities that may have never existed before.

Strategies To Use That Keep Customers Engaged

Place a COVID-19 response banner at the top of your website that directs to content showing how your company is able to help. People want to know what problems you may be able to solve for them during this crisis.

There are industries that will have a very difficult time recovering. If you are in these industries or have some relation to them in the supply chain, it’s time to get creative and approach new avenues. Your customers will be looking to you by the way of online marketing and video conferencing. Virtual technology is not just a way to interact with employees, it’s a way to stay close to your customers.

Keep Long Term Goals in Mind

Don’t stop marketing. The investment is worth it. The opportunity exists to get more eyeballs to your content. People have more time to be in front of the computer. Take advantage of using video to reach clients. Luckily, it your budget is slashed there are ways to present this content affordably. When giving a presentation prepare an organized content outline and script. If technology gets interrupted, it’s a good idea to make notations on your outline for where you left off.

Take advantage of   Zoom and   Microsoft Teams which are offering free and discounted services.

 

 

Podcasts work the same. Prepare a marketing plan with an outline and topics just as you would a blog. If hosting something more informal where the audience interacts via a chat system or calling in, prepare scripts for questions you think would get asked so your prepared- especially if it’s a live event. After your presentation is over, have it transcribed to use for inbound marketing. Re-purposing the same content for different formats will broaden your reach. However, it must be relative to the type of audience on that platform.

Rethink Keywords and Topics

Use Google trends to help find relative keywords and topics that are trending. If your business is related in some way to a trending topic, write something relevant. Perhaps there is a silver lining on how you are a currently helping a suffering industry. If so, write a story about it. If not, perhaps publish ideas on how you would fix a problem.

Some Business is Better Than No Business

Now is the time to have a sale. Some will tell you never to discount prices. Just because you lower prices at this time, does not mean you’re lowering value.

There is no reason why B2B companies can’t offer some of the traditional e-commerce consumer marketing tactics into the mix. Of course, you have to factor in your costs and margins- but it can be an effective way to attract customers.

Why You Should Create a Pillar Page

Pillar pages are a great way to help with your search engine rankings. They help organize content on your website for the benefit of SEO. They allow your website to break down niche topics for your services.

For B2B it’s recommended to link to an educational pillar page and not a landing page that sells during pandemic times. Your upside strategy is to educate first and capture relationships with a customer. B2C selling products can use product links if it is permissible by the publishers as they may get affiliate fees from such relationships.

Pillar pages are a marketing and SEO tool to cover all aspects of a topic on one page. For example, a topic is created under one keyword such as “email marketing.” Various topic links to more detailed information would direct to a blog expanding on the specific topic. Pillars are much longer than other pages on your website. Pillar pages can be designed with simple graphics making them visually more appealing and easier to navigate.

Let’s say you are in the content marketing industry. Your website offers services helping people create emails, videos, content marketing specifically for accountants. The titles of the topics used on the pillar pages will link all of the various other content on your site.

Pillar pages have different subtopics related to other content on your page.

Here is an example of a small simple pillar page used for marketing purposes. On the far-right side, the listed topics are hyperlinked to a relevant blog on that topic. If this was a live page, the links takes readers to the blog, white paper, case study, article etc within your website.

 

 

 

 

Don’t forget to place link-backs to the pillar page so readers can connect back to other topics. You can place multiple graphic boxes on a pillar page to further create an internal linking strategy.

Guest Blogging

Page Authority scores range from one to 100. Higher domain authority scores will have a greater ability to rank. Check out guest blogging on websites with domain authority from 21-70. Don’t discount lower authority sites as some of your customers may be reading them. You can use Moz.com to search for domain authority site rankings. Re-purpose original content or create new content to attract audiences. Your content must be highly relevant to the website your guest post appears. Check out Buzz Blogger to find websites taking guest blogging submissions.

We Need To Support Others

If you are an enterprise business, you can support smaller businesses your connected with. Check out https://paytoday.club/ You can show that you are committed to paying vendors on time. Spread the word to others. If you are a small business share how you got paid to help others. Government entities can also join.

In final: Don’t panic. Be as methodical and strategic as you were before the Coronavirus pandemic. Things will get better. All you can do is prepare for the future and think positive. It’s in the worst of times where we are stripped naked to see the vulnerabilities in our businesses. Now is the time to realize how we can become stronger than ever.

About the Author-Leslie Cohen: With over ten years of experience at consumer startups, media companies, and an agency, Leslie brings new perspectives for content writing using her creativity along with being knowledgeable about data analytics SEO, and sales copy. She is recognized for a full- hearted approach with colorful ideas that help you succeed with your marketing plans. She specializes in copywriting and content marketing strategies to create the magic that attracts new clients, and up-sells existing. If you have not yet reached your goals, I can help you figure out a way to accomplish them.