Marketing in challenging times. Retain your existing customers.

Marketing tactics during Coronavirus needs to be reactive to changing situations and creative using existing resources rather than external paid sources. With Coronavirus causing such uncertainty our businesses are all facing challenging times as the impact is starting to bite. Friday’s Government announcement regarding the support they will be providing to businesses will help ease the situation.  As the financial aid packages unfold over the course of the next few weeks now is the time to start planning your marketing strategy for the long haul.

It is time to work smarter, be creative with our resources and get ready to tackle the challenges ahead.

Five steps every business MUST take to prepare marketing activity during the Coronavirus downturn:

1. Retain your existing customer base
2. Be visible in front of your target audiences
3. Drive conversions (business is still being placed for the future, even in this challenging time)
4. Measure results
5. Learn and test

Over the coming days, we will be going through each step and providing you with marketing advice to help shape your strategy to get your business ready for the future, so you are at the forefront of your competitive marketplace. These marketing steps do not have to eat up what will be a very reduced marketing budget, instead, it utilises free tools, tactics you will already have in place and existing staff to carry out the activities.

Retain your existing customer base

It is cheaper to keep an existing customer who values and engages with your products than to attract new customers – the relationship is already there; they know your business and they know your product, so customer engagement and loyalty is higher with existing customers. Therefore, these are your most valuable customers, let’s not lose sight of them and turn to panic marketing to try and attract new business just yet.

Out of sight means out of mind for many – over the coming weeks, your competitors will be looking at you and their other competitors and waging their own marketing war. If you are not prepared, they may be able to entice your existing customer base away.

The easiest marketing function to help retain existing customers is marketing automation. Personalised, contextualised targeted messages sent to existing customers who want to hear your news and future developments. Email campaigns, if used correctly, are a great marketing resource and many email platforms allow you to send a certain amount of emails per month free of charge.

We are not talking broad brush sales messages or generic mass campaigns; we are talking personal. Your customers will not be thinking about buying in this present period of uncertainty, but they will value your loyalty and your support. We are all in this together so engage with your customers and let them know you are thinking of them. Building brand loyalty and engagement will almost certainly lead to a higher retention level than a mass sales campaign in the current climate.

It is worth checking with email automation companies to see if they can offer discounted services in this time. Hubspot have announced that for the next 90 days they are suspending marketing email limits to help businesses stay in touch with their customers.

Content

This is essential right now. Your existing customers are likely to be browsing your website anyway so ensure they have a valuable reason to visit by providing relevant content. Share updates, industry news and also what developments your business is making that will make you better than your competitors. If you can share offers or new products and services then go for it. Sales focused content on a website will be better received than in an email campaign as it will appear on the website in your customers journey – not pushed upon them.

Social Media

No doubt you have all seen the rise in social media engagement recently. With people working from home, self-isolating and social distancing social media platforms have become a valuable resource for conducting business and staying in touch. Engage in conversations with your existing customers on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook – these are where your customers will be reviewing your products, looking at what you are doing right now and speaking to like-minded contacts.

If you can become a voice of reason and support to your existing base it will again build your brand loyalty. Social media doesn’t have to be about paid advertising to reach the masses, utilising hashtags and creating valuable and thought-provoking content will reach your audience if you plan correctly. Engagement is critical to building awareness and will help to contribute to the reach of your content allowing you to break into new audiences.

Marketing during the Coronavirus phase is going to be tough but we are building the foundations for a solid future. We will be exploring more ideas over the coming weeks to help your marketing tactics during the Coronavirus. If you would like to sign up to our newsletter to get up-to-date industry news and advice please contact us.