Coronavirus and Marketing: how to survive and benefit from this epidemic?

CORONAVIRUS & MARKETING

 How To Survive And Benefit From This Epidemic?

Freelancers and businesses, in general, have had a hard time since the confinement measures linked to the coronavirus. Cancellation, postponement, activity will be at half-mast in the coming months. In order to overcome this vacuum, here are some tips to adapt your communication and your activity.

Coronavirus: how to adapt your marketing strategy?

While we are all confined, because of the Coronavirus, and those who can are teleworking, it is important to think about adapting your marketing strategy to reach your customers and prospects where they are today.

Find below my thoughts on the subject.

KEEP YOUR OPTIMISM

During this period which affects the entire population hard, it is important to keep your optimism!

Take advantage of this time of confinement to revise your communication strategy and prepare for the months to come. After this sharp drop in activity forced by the coronavirus, it will be important to start again to make up for lost months.

Be positive and prepare now for this recovery!

How does the customer journey change with Coronavirus?

As you know within the framework of our Acquisition Strategy Design methodology, understanding the customer purchasing journey is the key to building its acquisition strategies and defining its action plan. In this case, an exceptional situation like the Coronavirus has a significant impact on the purchasing paths of customers which must be taken into account to adapt its marketing strategy.

Impact of Coronavirus on the B2C purchasing journey and how to adapt its B2C marketing strategy 

In B2C, a customer will move less and therefore less go to the store. On the other hand, there will be more time to do research online, to compare prices and to order on the Internet. This is an opportunity to boost your SEA and Google Shopping strategies. It is also important to make sure that all of your products are available online and up to date, and that you have as many positive reviews as possible. If you don't have an e-commerce website, now is the time to sign up for marketplaces like Amazon, etc. to give visibility to your online products and benefit from the logistics implemented.

Blocked at home due to teleworking or confinement, he will consume more media including television than he normally watched during the day. It may, therefore, be worth investing in daytime advertising screens to reach an active target. Overall, he will also have more time to be on the Internet, he will have to provide more content.

In addition, he may take the opportunity to or arrange some unfinished rooms, do DIY, this may be the time to give planning advice, DIY advice ...

Impact of Coronavirus on the B2B purchasing journey and how to adapt its B2B marketing strategy

In B2B, the impact will be different but not that much. Indeed, as in B2C customers and prospects will be more maintained at home and will work from their home. They will, therefore, be less taken in meetings and coffee breaks. and will have more time to search the Internet. They will consume more content and this is an opportunity to enrich your content strategy, to publish more articles, or books.

WORK YOUR SEO

Working on SEO on Google takes time: creating content, links, optimizing the site, etc. Take advantage of this period to explore this subject. In a few months, the results will arrive to help you revive your activity.

In addition, your prospect or client will no longer be able to go to trade fairs as before and will limit their travel, so it will be important to offer solutions to meet them differently such as webinars, virtual fairs or even virtual conferences that correspond to several webinars organized the same day or the same week.

Communicate regularly with them: offer them an adaptation of your services, start planning with them in the coming months.

It is important to have a good follow-up. You must have cancelled some of your services. Try, as much as possible, to offer different options to maximize carryovers and minimize cancellations.

If your activity allows, consider offering specific services such as the establishment of opening hours reserved for the elderly.

Despite the drop in activity, it is essential to maintain regular communication. Inbound marketing, SEO, email marketing and social media will be your best allies.

COMMUNICATE ON SOCIAL NETWORKS

Even though social media is currently overwhelmed with information related to COVID-19, at some point people are going to need to move on.

Take the opportunity to communicate regularly on all of your social networks. People at home will tend to connect much more regularly.

DON'T FORGET EMAIL MARKETING

Also communicate regularly with your registrant base. And if you don't already have an email marketing strategy in place, now is a good time to start one. For this, read our article "Create a newsletter with Mailchimp".

SURF ON LIVE VIDEO FORMATS

Webinar, Facebook live or whatever, it's a good time to set up live communications. Get started!

ADAPT YOUR ADVERTISING BUDGETS

Depending on your activities, adapt your advertising budgets. For certain activities that have become impossible with confinement, it is better to slow down your budgets. If Google Ads campaigns can be easily cut without impact, prefer slowing down for your Facebook Ads campaigns, the Facebook algorithm does not like campaign stops and resumes.

Conversely, if your online activity allows you to bounce back from the situation, take the opportunity to maximize your budgets. The competition will decrease and so will prices, with most advertising platforms based on an auction model.

AIDS PROVIDED BY THE GOVERNMENT FOR ENTREPRENEURS AND SELF-EMPLOYED

To finish on the subject, here are some aids put in place by the government to respond to the situation of the coronavirus.

Undoubtedly. A record 3.3 million individuals petitioned for joblessness in the United States a week ago as the COVID-19 pandemic shut down a significant part of the U.S. economy and the size of the effect of the emergency was starting to rise.

Several aids have been announced, URSSAF has for example automatically cancelled the March deadline, it will be gradually extended over the coming months.

The credits in progress can be spread out, a solidarity fund for the self-employed and small businesses is also being set up. It will be aimed at companies that have seen their turnover fall by more than 70% and reserved for companies whose turnover does not exceed 1 million euros.

Water, gas and electricity bills, as well as rents, can be suspended.

Other helpers are also being deployed, on this subject, I advise you to read the complete file published by the site Set up your business: Helpers for entrepreneurs following the Coronavirus.

Good luck in this complicated period, do not hesitate to share your best practices via the comments!

Leave a comment on this article, not just any comment: give advice on communicating or developing your business in times of crisis. The goal: that it be constructive for all. We will add the best to this article.

Please share the article on your social networks, if you find it interesting.