Affected by COVID-19? Digital Marketing Tactics Your Business Can Do Now

Update your Google My Business profile. Update your hours and business description to specify any changes due to COVID-19. 

This is particularly important for:

• Restaurants, bars, grocery stores, essentially any establishment with regular foot traffic
• Medical clinics such as dentists, veterinarians, primary care physicians, etc.
• Apartments and multi-housing communities

Now is the perfect time to assess the content across your website and ensure that it is delivering relevant messages, especially if COVID-19 greatly affects the day-to-day of your business.

• Is there any messaging that can be added to your site to help promote your products or services during this time?
• What calls-to-action (CTAs) can be added? For example, if you are in the restaurant industry, does your website have updated messaging about delivery or takeout services?
• If you are in the travel industry, are future travel deals posted prominently across your site?

The travel industry is going to be hit hard across the board, but any messaging to promote future travel deals can help mitigate this, at least a little. If you are in the medical industry and have to halt all non-emergency appointments, has that messaging been updated?

Delivering compelling content is important now more than ever. Individuals will be spending a great amount of time at home. Delivering helpful, informational content, and content that is uplifting or encouraging, is a great opportunity to reach more of your audience right now.

To reach your audience with strategic and crucial messaging, consider email blasts. Most people are working remotely and checking emails frequently. Utilize email as a channel to target existing or new customers. It's an affordable channel, and while it may not completely mitigate performance losses, you can still show value to your current customers and potential new ones through this channel. This will help to build trust and loyalty, which will carry over after this pandemic is over. 

You don’t need a full production studio to create great video content. You can record any brand messages or updates, product how-tos, etc. with a phone and post those to your website and on social media.

If your business has had any upcoming events canceled, also consider hosting those events online with a webinar instead.

Setting up Google Alerts is a great way to pick up on any sort of online media coverage for your business at this time. By setting these up, you can get a pulse on any articles referencing you online. Not simply to see what is being written, but also potentially gain a relevant backlink to your site, which can ultimately boost domain authority.

There have been many positive, uplifting stories coming out of all of this chaos. However, there are always a few bad apples out there. Website security should be at the top of your radar right now, as many will unfortunately look to exploit sites during this time where focus is centered elsewhere. There has been a drastic spike over the past few weeks of companies moving to remote working environments. Now is an ideal time to ensure that CMS plugins are updated, passwords are secure, phishing scams are avoided and so on.

Digital marketing is one of the most effective ways to market your business regularly, but especially in downtimes. Get started today, and if you need a team of experts who are glad to lend a helping hand, contact Forthea.