by Brooke Jensen | Apr 17, 2020 | Advertising, Facebook, Facebook Ads, Marketing, Small Business
The idea of losing out on some of your most important clients can make even the best digital marketing agencies worry. Customer retention strategies aren’t something you should only begin implementing into your business as you start noticing clients dropping off. Being proactive is the best way you can ensure you manage to keep your customers from leaving you and potentially falling in the hand of another agency.
Keeping your customers is a crucial part of your agency’s capability to maintain success and has a positive effect on your budget. That’s why customer retention strategies have become a crucial part of almost every business. For this article, we’ll go over several ways strategies that can help digital marketing agencies retain their customers.
Positive first impressions
One of the most effective ways you can retain your customers is by creating a positive and unforgettable impression. When you’ve managed to make a positive impression on your client at the start, you’ll have a higher chance of dealing with them in marketing collaborations in the future. This type of engagement shall lead to your digital marketing agency receiving more sales and revenue.
There are several ways you can secure a positive first impression.
First of all, you can send your client a welcome email that can encourage any new customers to sign up for future email updates. When using this strategy, consider making an additional effort to greet the new customers by creating unforgettable first impressions. Make sure you manage to pull off a friendly tone when speaking to potential new customers. Your clients may walk into your building or chat with one of your representatives on social media. These potential clients must be greeted in a positive and friendly manner so they won’t be turned off from wanting to acquire your services.
You should always keep in mind to create content that is intended for your target audience. By coming up with personalized and targeted content, you’ll be able to develop a lasting relationship with your clients.
Remember, if your potential customers’ first experience with your agency doesn’t manage to go well, it can have a massive impact on them. While it’s possible for your company to make amends, it will take time and effort to accomplish this.
Choose your clients carefully
When you’re out looking for new clients to onboard, it can be difficult to turn them down, but there comes a time when this becomes necessary. There are a variety of reasons why you should be picking when choosing what you decide to conduct your business with. Having to deal with problematic clients will take a huge chunk of your team’s day in order to solve the issue they are complaining about. Furthermore, there is a chance that the client will make such a huge stink about the situation that your reputation can be damaged, even if there is nothing you can really do to satisfy the client.
The best thing you can do is let them go instead of wasting time delivering work and services that won’t satisfy them until they decide to go away on their own terms. This approach will only fuel the fire and lead to your reputation from being further damaged in the long run. Chances are, you’ll be eventually spending more time seeking out for new clients in the market instead of concentrating on keeping an existing client satisfied.
Clients are the lifeblood of your business and ensure that you can keep your business running, so you’ll need to keep the majority of your clients. If you manage to select the appropriate people from the start of your acquisition stage and say no to clients who won’t fit well with your agency, then you should be capable of keeping most of your existing customers.
Be aware of their business goals
It’s pretty much improbable to deliver any fantastic results to your clients if you are not aware of what they wish to achieve with their business. You’ll need to take the time to understand the ins and outs of their offer, along with getting an in-depth assessment of what their main objectives will be. While utilizing KPIs has always been an integral piece for digital marketing, they won’t really mean too much if your client isn’t fully aware of how this manages to affect their business.
By taking the time to assist your client and making it clear on how your agency’s marketing efforts in helping them achieve their business goals will ensure their trust in your agency increases. Plus, it will make it easier for them to remain as one of your many customers for a long time.
To pull this off, you want to ask them the appropriate question to start the meeting in a positive direction. Consider coming up with some questions you can ask during the meeting with your client to better understand them, which should allow you to collect valuable information to help align your strategy to your client’s goals.
Some questions you can consider asking them are:
- What is your company’s best selling product/service?
- Who are you trying to target?
- Who do you consider your main competitors and what sets your business apart from theirs?
- What’s the value of your customers to your company?
Coming up with questions that will be relevant to their interest in advance will ensure the meeting runs smoothly and make sure you are capable of managing the first couple of months of handling your relationship with the new client.
Temper your expectation
Being able to deliver more value than you initially promised is considered another fantastic way to retain your existing clients. Take the pricing you offered into consideration before you manage to make any concrete promises on what you’ll be presenting to them. You don’t want to overextend yourself on promises and not deliver them at the end of the day. This will lead to you being placed in a negative light in the long run. Don’t make any promises you won’t be able to keep, instead try to deliver on what you’ve already promised so you can retain more clients.
By over-delivering on your promises, you’ll likely have the client tripping over their own feet and renewing their contract once again. And, let’s not forget the possibility of them spreading the word about the astounding work you’ve managed to provide for them.
Report monthly to show the value
While you may be increasing sales for your client, that doesn’t mean that they are automatically attributing the results due to your efforts. Coming up with a monthly statement may seem like a hassle, and your client may only skim through it instead of fully absorbing it, but solely receiving the report and being aware of your ongoing progress and accountability will make the client very happy with your agency.
The moment your client sees that monthly report inside their inbox during a specified date every month, they’ll become quite thrilled to see what the agency has managed to accomplish for them over the past several weeks. The report should be delivered consistently, without the client requiring to ask for the report.
Developing your own report all comes down to the type of service you are offering them, but it should be a smooth, branded reporting template that should be easy for your team to include pie charts and slide graphs inside. For instance, if your digital marketing agency is in the inbound market, the reporting should highlight the content you’ve developed that month, traffic, and other relevant stats, along with the number of leads every single one of these activities has managed to provide for your client.
Communication efforts
When you are staying in touch with your client every step of the way, it will develop trust and increase the possibility of them renewing their contract with you. Some agencies tend to make the mistake of only communicating with their clients when there is some progress or for an update on what’s currently happening, but this is a fatal mistake. You should be communicating with them at all times, even when you don’t have much to say to them.
Your client will become nervous if they aren’t being told about what’s going on and start to assume that the agency they hired isn’t pulling their end of the bargain. You can either call them or email them during the start of the week to let them be aware of what the tea is currently working on and what they’re attempting to accomplish. At the end of the week, send them another message telling them what the team has done, and if they are currently ahead of or behind schedule, or if they need confirmation from the client to proceed.
If something has gone wrong on your end, don’t try to hide it from your client. You should be reporting even the bad news to them. Client retention doesn’t mean you should roll over for your client, there are moments when you’ll have to inform the client something they won’t like to hear, so don’t hesitate to do so. Most of them would prefer to be told about the bad news than going a long while without any updates.
You should also take the time to consider how your client would like to stay in communicating with your agency. While some agencies would prefer to place everything in a single email, chances are, your client may be the type of person who has trouble managing their email because they receive so many each day. If that is the case for any future clients you acquire, then you’ll have to come up with alternative means of communication. Consider using other communication platforms such as Slack, Skye, Facebook Messenger, Whatsapp, text messaging, or any other way you can get in contact with them, as long as the method works for both parties.
Personal touch
When you are hiring an account manager, make sure you place a higher priority on seeking out people who are likable and empathetic instead of getting someone who is overly organized and far too serious about marketing. While having a skilled account manager is essential for the success of your business, you want to make sure they are a people person at foremost. Account managers hold a critical role they must play in customer retention, and including a personal touch to their approach will make a whole lot of difference.
Your account manager should be empowered and motivated to surprise their clients regularly, by either sending them a birthday gift, or holiday gift, taking them out to lunch, or solely getting touch with them over the phone to check in and offer any advice they may currently need. There are a variety of ways you can include a personal touch to your customer interaction with your agency.
This all comes down to reciprocity, which is something that occurs naturally to most people. If someone does something helpful for you, there is a chance you’ll return that favor and do something kind for them. This is one of the main reasons why personal touches will have a massive impact on your customer retention rate.
Conclusion
Customer retention is the key for any business to succeed out there no matter what industry they may be involved in, and that’s especially true for digital marketing agencies. We rely on our customers to approach us and allow us to provide them with the assistance they need to take their business to a whole new level.
To pull this off, you’ll need to make sure you are not only providing them with the work you’ve promised, but ensure you stay in touch with them, letting them know your team is doing everything they can to meet their business objectives. If your client is satisfied with the work you’ve done, then they’ll most likely recontract you on the spot. Hopefully, this article has managed to give you ideas on how to improve your customer retention strategy.
by Brooke Jensen | Apr 13, 2020 | Advertising, Facebook, Facebook Ads, Instagram, Small Business
The deadly virus known as the novel coronavirus or COVID-19 has managed to affect the world in all sorts of ways, from social interactions, public health, and especially the economy. These uncertain times have become worrisome for most people, especially small business owners who are unsure if they’ll be able to maintain their business from running due to this epidemic. Small business owners will need to deal with the sudden change to their campaign performance because of this ongoing situation.
This worldwide epidemic has shifted the way advertising has been running in the past few weeks. Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising has seen an influx in recent months, and many people have predicted that Facebook and Instagram will be seeing a downturn in certain areas. With businesses having to adjust their approach, people staying inside their homes more, and the world reacting to this deadly virus, many of them are turning to the news for the answers to their questions and solutions for their current problems.
Quite a few advertisers are already benefiting from the recent increase in new audiences who are finding their way to advertisers sites, and some are even being converted into new customers. On the other hand, the results aren’t exactly stellar, and several strategies will need to be modified. Indeed, now is the best time for most small businesses to continue their advertising campaigns, and many experts have agreed. Let’s go over what’s currently happening with the Facebook and Instagram ad industry.
Online activity is at an all-time high
With the majority of businesses that aren’t considered essentials closed, and most people are remaining inside the comforts of their homes to lessen the chance of spreading the deadly virus, social media engagement has increased to all new highest.
Since most people aren’t going to their favorite hangout spots or engage in various outdoor activities, they are using Facebook and Instagram much more often to stay in touch with one another. This means that the number of impressions is also on the rise, and the probability of your ads reaching out to your target audience is also increasing by the numbers. This means that small businesses will witness an overall decrease in operating costs for their advertising campaigns.
Facebook has seen quite a significant rise in numbers of the past couple of weeks. According to them, they’ve seen several numbers go up, such as:
- The rise of 70% of it’s Messenger group video calls, and their usual demand for video calls on WhatsApp has gone up by double the usual amount.
- The amount of messaging has gone up by more than 50% for both Messenger and WhatsApp.
- U.S. traffic from Facebook to other websites has generally increased by more than 50% on a daily basis.
The increase in activity has yet caused any problems for Facebook’s capability to deal with traffic, but Mark Zuckerberg has commented during a press call that the company is getting ready to respond if they see a spike in traffic surge even further.
“We’re trying to make sure that we can stay in front of this challenge,” he said. “Right now, this isn’t a massive outbreak in every country around the world but if it gets there, then we really need to make sure we’re on top of this from an infrastructure perspective and make sure that we can continue to provide the level of service that people need in a time like this.”
This is excellent news for many small business owners who are currently running advertising campaigns. However, this doesn’t mean we are encouraging everyone to start testing out any new initiatives during this time unless you’re capable of doing so while running your campaign for the next couple of months since you’ll be positioning yourself in a more favorable position for attention.
In the case of Instagram, this social media platform was hit the hardest compared to Facebook. Instagram saw a 14% decrease in engagement rate by followers as the coronavirus epidemic continued to progress. The reason behind this decline would have to do with the number of people using other mediums to receive their news or remain connected with friends and family members, such as Facebook, Another thing worth mentioning is that Instagrams engagement rate has been on a downward spiral as of late, suggesting that this platforms engagement rate will continue to decline compared to Facebooks.
The Competition
Whenever a disruption occurs to the average business day, the usual reaction for most small businesses is to pause their advertising campaigns, with the idea to restart them once the situation has concluded. While some would consider this a smart move, if you still have the finances to do so, it would be a much better move to continue running your ad campaign during this ongoing epidemic.
Since your competitors are most likely out of the competition for the moment, your shared customer base will be ripe for the picking. As a bonus, since you share the audience lower, you’ll eventually start noticing a decline in operating costs as well, hence making your expenditure more effective.
According to analysts, they are predicting that Facebook’s ad revenue shall see a 19% decline during this year because of the current situation, totaling around $15.7 in loss of profits. This indicates that a large chunk of your competitions won’t be getting in the way of any of the advertising campaigns you run during these trying times.
In a recent blog post on Facebook done by the executives of the social media platform, they disclosed that the company has “seen a weakening in our ads business in countries taking aggressive actions to reduce the spread of COVID-19.” While the platforms total usage has managed to increase during this epidemic, with message rates going up during the past month in countries that were hit the hardest by this deadly virus, although “We don’t monetize many of the services where we’re seeing increased engagement,” Facebook’s Alex Schultz, VP of analytics, and Jay Parikh, VP of engineering wrote.
Instagram has also witnessed a decline, as previously mentioned, but that doesn’t mean the decline in audience engagement won’t remain effective. Plenty of people are still using Instagram to post their news and any other things that can help them make it through these trying times. They even ran a hashtag campaign called Stay At Home to encourage their users to remain home and receive the latest news from the people they follow and use the hashtag in the meantime. This offers an excellent opportunity to share information about your business’s brand and advertise your products/services when they search the Stay At Home tag.
Instagram has also recently monetized its IGTV, although this monetization option is only being made available to specific channels during the beginning of the month. In-stream advertising shall begin running near the top of the most popular video creators content. According to a report done by Bloomberg, the creators of those programs shall receive over 55% share in the advertising profit on IGTV, which is considered the same rate that YouTube pays out to their content creators.
At the moment, IGTV is slowly growing in popularity, and the capability for creators and influencers to monetize on the platform is crucial for its rise in popularity. This will attract more creators and make them consider spending more time on the platform while trying to onboard their user base to this platform. Since they are already fully capable of generating revenue on both YouTube and Facebook, this evens out the playing field and offers Instagram the chance to compete against these two platforms.
With IGTV allowing advertisers to run their campaigns on the channels of the content creators will allow you to gain an edge on your advertising. Small business owners can have their ad campaigns run on these channels while people search through the various content, providing a chance for them to stumble upon the ad and clicking on them to see what it’s all about.
Another neat feature that is being published is the capability for Instagram users to stay up to date with the latest posts. Since users aren’t exactly the greatest fans when it comes to dealing with social media algorithms that show content out of order, even if it means they are seeing posts that end up being currently relevant to them. Small businesses aren’t fans of this as well, especially if it means their content is missed out by not being on top of a user’s feeds. Instagram plans to deal with this by adding a feature that’s known as the “latest post” feature, which should allow users to remain up to date. This is a feature that will be displayed over a user’s main feed alerting them that a new post was made and allow them the opportunity to catch up with the content.
Keep Posting
As a small business, you’ll need to ensure your brand remains active to gain new audience members and increase engagement rates. Studies have revealed that people should consistently post only 1 or 2 times a day. This will ensure your feed remains fresh and relevant since you have an even higher chance of attracting a higher audience amount to your daily content. Being aware of what hours are the best moments to publish a post on your account is crucial, especially when you are dealing with the platform’s algorithmic timeline.
The recommended time you should post your content has varied amongst experts, with most agreeing to different hours. Some of them have stated that the best time to make a post is between the hours of 8 am to 9 am or 2 pm to 5 pm for the first post of the day. This type of inconsistency can cause confusion to occur amongst the audience and yourself.
In truth, every business will have to experiment what times they see the most views on their page since one strategy that works for a clothing brand, may not work for a service provider. To find out what suits your daily posts best, you should make it a habit to check in on the insights feature that is available under the Instagram Business or creator account. This should be capable of providing you with the information you need to identify the peak hour your audience is most active and allow you to schedule accordingly, ensuring your post starts to appear on top of their feed daily.
This is fantastic news for small businesses that are struggling to engage with their customers on Instagram and are struggling to have their content appear towards the top of the user’s feed. If Instagram decides to roll it out soon enough, it can become a crucial part of your advertising at peak posting times. This additional bump in visibility will allow small businesses to create engaging posts, which then allows them to bump in the algorithm at a later date well.
Don’t make fearful posts
Unfortunately, some people have been trying to capitalize on this current epidemic by making ads that prey on the fears of the people. Facebook has already forbidden ads which are attempting to profit on people’s concerns over the coronavirus, and they are planning to expand that to target any adverts and commerce listings on a face mask because of large profiteering pushers, and Facebook plans to extend this coronavirus ad restriction further by including all listings on hand sanitizers, disinfectant wipes, and test kits.
Instagram has also gotten involved in the banning of these types of ads on its platform. Instagram chief Adam Mosseri provided some additional context for the decision through a twitter post:
“Supplies are short, prices are up, and we’re against people exploiting this public health emergency.”
Conclusion
Facebook and Instagram are both witnessing a surge in people engaging on their platform. This has given small businesses an excellent opportunity to ensure they can get the word of their brand out there. But you should still take the time to consider your strategy and what you can do to adjust your advertising campaign accordingly. Right now, the iron is hot, and this may be the only chance you have to strike it.
by Brooke Jensen | Apr 7, 2020 | Advertising, Budget, Marketing
Small businesses all over the united states are currently struggling to maintain their operations during this dreadful epidemic. So far, most are unsure when this deadly virus will be out of our lives, but some believe things will be going to normal soon enough. Still, it’s a harsh situation for many businesses to be in, and despite the recent $2 trillion stimulus package won’t be enough to take the edge off worrying business owners.
Trying to maintain a small business stable during these trying times can be challenging. Although many small business owners are passionate about their business, doing certain things can help with keeping the business running through the epidemic until everything goes back to normal. Unfortunately, there are no standard guidelines to help small businesses make it out of this crisis with little to no trouble. Every small business operates in its own way, and each one of them comes with its own set of problems. These dissimilarities make following another company’s strategy impossible.
Even so, there are still some general guidelines small business owners can do right now to continue running their business during this crisis. Let’s go over what you can do right now as a small business owner.
Look over your finances
As a business owner, you should always have a deep understanding of your business’s finances, especially now with this current epidemic. You must be extremely clear on your numbers, with less revenue flowing into your business, or with more limited income returning in the future, you want to learn about your expenses and what you have in your business reserves. Take these numbers and start plugging them into your business model template to help answer some of the crucial questions on where to take your business. While doing this may come off as intimidating at first, you’ll be relieved to see where your business is currently standing.
Educate customers on what you are doing to keep them safe
Some businesses are still running and operating their business during this growing crisis. If you are one of the many business owners who have kept their doors open to continue providing your community with desperately needed supplies, you’ll want to make sure you are informing the public on what you are doing to prevent the potential spread of the coronavirus. There are several ways you can do so that you won’t take too much time or resources to accomplish this goal.
If you have any social media accounts, such as Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram, consider making a post about what you are doing to provide a safe and clean environment for your customers. For example, grocery stores have begun opening their doors earlier than usual, so those of older age can come and stock on food. This is to prevent any potential transmission of the virus to occur from young to old and ensures the place doesn’t become packed with too many shoppers like it usually would be.
If you’re a restaurant owner who delivers food, let customers know that not only are you still open for business but let them know of what safety precautions you and your staff are taking to make sure the virus doesn’t contaminate their meal or spreads to them. For example, some restaurants are leaving the food on the curve of the person’s home or apartment so their customer can get it themselves. This ensures that social distancing remains in practice and will show the customer how serious you are about preventing the spread.
You can also hang up posters or flyers outside your store to inform the customers what steps you are taking and what steps they should take to ensure any potential transmission remains as low as possible. Keep in mind that you are doing this to alleviate any fears and anxieties they may have and will make it easier for you to not only retain your business but establish a strong reputation as well.
Educate staff members on remaining healthy
There is a lot of misinformation being spread around the media, and plenty of your employees may not have the most accurate information from credible sources on how they can keep themselves, their families, and their coworkers safe from the virus. You should take the time to remain up to date with reputable sources so you can keep them informed about the latest news on the coronavirus. As the owner of the business, you’re in a position of leadership, and now is the time to take action and prove yourself as a leader.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has put up some health and safety tips that help prevent the spread of the virus, share them with your staff.
No handshakes: Use a non-contact method for greetings.
Wash your hands: Employees should wash their hands when they arrive and every time they enter the premises, as well as frequently throughout the day.
Try not to touch your face, and remind employees to do the same
Constantly and regularly disinfect surfaces, including door knobs, handrails, the POS system, tables, and desks.
By ensuring they remain proactive about cleanliness, you’ll be keeping your employees and customers safe from potential harm.
Assess your business
Most individuals will ordinarily try to undertake the most prominent problems as soon as they can. While most would consider the move to be a smart business sense for certain situations, it can lead to potentially losing out on something. Small business owners will need to learn to take a step back, and carefully assess the situation, to make a positive and lasting transformation.
This is the chance to take a close look at the size and scope of any current problem plaguing your business and further becoming familiarized with the business model, discerning how it’s stable and weak points impact your business. For instance, if you discover that two of your employees are making far too many mistakes with inventory that have caused several supplies to be understocked, you’d usually fire these employees. Although, you can take another approach by considering whether the manager who hired and supervised them has trained them appropriately, or maybe the manager could be the real issue. By looking at the problem carefully, it is possible to minimize or eliminate the possibility of these problems from happening once again.
If the manager was the source behind these difficulties, you’d usually consider firing them without thinking of other alternatives. This could cause further problems for your business, especially if that manager’s relationship with existing customers has a history of retaining business and considerable revenue. Instead of firing them, consider providing them with some simple training for the manager instead of just firing them.
Taking the time to assess the situation and understand the problems that are plaguing your business will help you gain a better understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of your business. Plus, this should help prevent other situations from cropping up and negatively impacting your revenue.
Financially accessible
As a small business owner, you’ll need to take several steps to make sure your business has enough access to cash, especially during this critical period. Getting in contact with a bank loan officer and understanding what steps you need to take to acquire a loan is one option. You can also open up a line of credit in advance to fund any potential short-term cash flow issues that may arise.
Another thing small business owners should have is a source of finances lined up as well. This can include several things, such as utilizing your savings, borrowing funds from friends or family members, liquidating any stock holds, and so on. Small business owners will need to have access to money or have to come up with inventive ways to gain funding to ensure they survive these troubling times.
The Treasury Department has recently managed to pass several loans that are capable of providing financial help to small business owners. Two of the ones that were recently passed are the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) and the Economic Injury Disaster Loans (EIDL). Small business owners should consider checking these out while they have the time to apply to them.
Stay Informed
At the moment, several special measures are being taken to support small business owners as we speak. For instance, the Family First Coronavirus Response Act offers tax credits to small business owners who are currently taking care of their children at homes. Several states have also begun implementing their measures that suspend mortgage payments and prevent eviction for those who are currently struggling financially because of this current epidemic.
Take the time to talk with your accountant about any other potential tax credit or deduction that may be available in your location, as well as our credit car company since a couple of them are offering to waive fees and payments. Congress is doing its best to release relief packages, so chances are more of them will come out that can provide assistance to your business. That’s why it’s crucial to pay attention to reputable sources in case something does get announced that can help your small business.
Go on the offensive
Don’t allow this current epidemic to paralyze you from going on the offensive. This is a great time to promote your business since the competition may have already bowed out. Remain in contact with your customers through social media and offer them deals or resources that will provide them with some sort of help. This will allow you to not only promote the brand of your business but capture the hearts of these folks who will likely become customers once everything becomes normal. They’ll remember the name of your business for providing them with all sorts of goods during a period of stress.
Shift sales to online
With storefronts closing down their doors and workers staying at home, smart business owners are moving their sales strategy online to avoid massive losses. If you are planning to close your stores, consider thinking of a way to continue providing a paycheck for your employees by selling on social media platforms, placing your email listing to excellent use, or solely relying on video tools to obtain new leads.
Don’t cut corners on quality
If you are having issues with the quality of your product, then it makes sense to deal with it as soon as possible. It’s also a good idea to remain on top of things and get employees on board with any changes that may be made to your business. Although, most business owners should be concise of not cutting corners on quality when making changes to a product.
Small business owners who are searching for ways to remind a steady cash flow on certain products should be cautious about making massive adjustments to specific components. For instance, if you run a pizzeria and are currently experiencing a downturn in revenue but are searching for ways to increase margins per pizza by procuring cheaper ingredients, this could lead to some severe issues in the long run. Lowering the quality of your ingredients will cause customers to become dissatisfied with the flavor of the pizza, and sales will start to plummet.
The idea here to maintain your revenue while retaining or improving the quality of a product.
Conclusion
Small business owners are getting burnt of this current epidemic, but that doesn’t mean they should give up on maintaining their business. It’s your responsibility as the business owner to continue doing everything you can to ensure your business remains afloat until better times arrive. Right now, you need to do everything you can to provide your employees and customers with the best service they can get. If you are having trouble, just keep an eye out for the loans and assistance that are being passed by Congress so you can benefit from the help offered to small businesses.
Hopefully, this article has managed to help you during these trying times. The best we can all do is continue to hunker down and weather this deadly virus.
by Brooke Jensen | Apr 4, 2020 | Advertising, Branding, Facebook, Facebook Ads, Infographic, Instagram, Marketing, Top
The coronavirus pandemic continues to have a severe impact on everyone’s lives, from businesses to schooling, no one has been left unscathed from this epidemic. This has been especially difficult for small business owners who need to find the right opportunity to help them develop close relationships with their customer base while maintaining a respectable amount of space. These trying times are making everyone come up with ways they can continue to promote their business.
Fortunately, advertising online has become an art during the past decade, and with everyone online, you’ll potentially be able to attract new customers. With everyone spending the majority online, it’s a great time to ramp up your advertising strategy and target not only your current customers but new ones as well. Facebook and Instagram are the two places most people are spending their time keeping in touch with one another, and it’s your chance to start spreading your brand to these individuals.
For this article, we’ll be going over some of the top strategies you can use for Facebook and Instagram advertising during this pandemic.
Develop brand awareness
With the massive amount of people staying indoors, you’ll most likely see more potential customers browsing online to stay connected with one another and pass the time. As two of the most popular social media platforms, Facebook and Instagram will most likely see an increase in website traffic during the coming weeks. With the number of impressions and the alteration in the competition, your cost per impression will most likely decrease. Fortunately, this does offer you a great chance to capture more reach within your budget limit for Instagram and Facebook.
If you are capable of coming up with plans for your advertising strategy ahead of time, you should be able to capture tons of people when they are searching for all sorts of content to stave off their boredom. The content you provide them with should be capable of serving them some kind of value to the product or services you give and how it can benefit them once they’re prepared to buy once the quarantine is done or plan to in the coming future.
Most importantly, try to keep your customer base engaged with anything you can think of. From the latest news revolving around your business and encourage them to help you during these times with several activities, such as:
Leaving positive feedback
- Plenty of customers who’ve used your service or purchased a product will most likely follow your company’s social media profile. Consider reaching out to them and asking them to leave a review on how their experience went. Not every one of your customers may have left a review in the past, but now that many of them are spending a good percentage of their time browsing through Instagram and Facebook, they’ll most likely see the request and leave something behind. Even if some of the reviews are negative, try to turn it into something positive by apologizing to them and reaching out to them to inquire about what you can do to improve your business.
Online discount sales
- Plenty of people live paycheck to paycheck, and that can make it hard to purchase what they need to survive. With this growing pandemic, most people are out of jobs and barely have any cash to get by due to the closing of most businesses. Consider giving your customer base a discount on goods or services to develop your brand’s reputation with not only existing customers but new ones as well. This will ensure you can retain most of them even after the pandemic has passed, with most of them having a positive experience due to the discount you have offered.
Gift cards
- Offer your users a chance to purchase gift cards for friends and family members. This will allow them to give something to friends and family members who are struggling with getting by to buy a product from your store. You can spread the message on both Facebook and Instagram by notifying both existing customers and new ones to know about your business having a gift card for use. You can also offer your customers a $20 gift card once they’ve spent a certain amount since they’re most likely to spend a few extra items to meet the requirements. Plus, if they do end up giving it to someone else, that’s a new potential customer for your business.
Delivery orders/curbside pickup
- Plenty of people are too worried about going out but wish to seriously purchase something and receiving without going out and catching the deadly virus. Restaurants are especially vital during these times since most people will be craving for particular types of food, or they might not know how to cook. For example, most restaurants are staying open and are proposing to deliver the meals by leaving the package on the curbside for pickup. Use your Instagram and Facebook account to let people know you are offering this type of service during these trying times. This will not only help you continue running your business but potentially gain new customers as well.
- Even if you are not in a business that offers some shop that sells goods or services, consider compiling a list of places that are offering these delivery services and posting them on your social media accounts. You’ll be providing your customers with the information they may not have known and boost your brand’s reputation. Plus, you likely have those services thanking you and reposting the list with their own customers as well.
- Improving your brand awareness during these trying times is crucial, especially for smaller and local businesses, so don’t hesitate to apply those strategies.
Use Facebook and Instagram Live Video
Facebook and Instagram both have a program that allows people to stream live through their profile to their followers. This is an excellent way for businesses to communicate with their customers online, especially those who are struggling to change strategies and offer their wares and services online. Even if switching your services towards the internet is impossible, you can remain in contact with your customers with Facebook and Instagram Live.
By launching a live video, you’ll be able to remain connected with your customer base more directly and authentically. Video marketing has proven to be an effective way to reach out to customers, and if you haven’t implemented this into your advertising strategy, now’s the time to do so. Facebook and Instagram have proven that live videos receive a higher engagement rate than pre-recorded videos. All you need to do is grab your smartphone and launch the streaming service to draw in your customers.
Individuals who are currently in self-isolation or at least following the social distancing rule will search for opportunities to make contact with other people face to face. While live videos are the same as direct contact, it’s still one of the few solutions offering ways for people to interact with one another, and it’s one of the many experiences your customer base is longing for.
Take the time to show your customers that you are in the same boat as them and provide them with answers to questions they may be wondering about your services. Answer a few questions during real-time, conduct a webinar, provide online demos, offer online check-ins, and anything else you can come up with to keep your customers up-to-date with the latest happening surrounding your business.
To ensure your live event is successful, consider launching the stream in high-resolution and clear illumination. If you’re not sure how your set up will look to the viewers, take some practice videos to identify the kind of changes you have to make to improve the quality of your live event. Don’t overstress about requiring the most reliable equipment and such, the main point of streaming yourself is to provide an authentic experience to your brand, so just pick up your phone and give it a shot.
Remarketing campaigns
It’s been proven time and time again that customers will usually abandon a website without finalizing the item they were interested in purchasing. With the number of people living vicariously online, now is the best time to get in contact with these individuals who previously visited your website and get them back onto your brand by providing them with various incentives, such as special promotions or discounts. Pulling this off is especially crucial for any business that is currently seeing an increase in traffic at the moment, such as food and health delivery brands.
Reach out to them by posting on both your Facebook and Instagram with a picture of your wares and how much you are offering for it at the moment. Or emphasize the fact that you are providing free shipping for any product they purchase from your stores. This will ensure they not only accept these amazing deals but encourage them to spread it to others who they may deem interested in your product as well.
Along with driving more visitors to your website, you can generate new leads and sales by testing engagement custom audiences, which grants you the opening to target users who have beforehand interacted with your content throughout Instagram and Facebook. This should also include remarketing to people who’ve previously liked, commented on, shared, or engaged with your Facebook and Instagram accounts, watched any of your videos, or have filled out any forms. Keep in mind that the more relatable you become, the higher your engagement rate will become.
Discover new leads and develop your email marketing
If your company is either online or a local business, there is a high probability that you are already sending out emails to ensure you can retain your customers and keep them updated with the latest newsletter. If your business is experiencing a downturn or closed at the moment, this can become a fantastic opportunity to divert your attention to acquiring new leads and emails in the place of encouraging sales.
Facebook and Instagram both are both capable of a lead ad campaign here are some things you should consider doing while the time is ripe:
- Gain the interest of your audience with content.
- Raise your leads ad signups rate for email newsletters.
- Acquire a customer-base to remarket at a later time.
For example, let’s say you work in the health and wellness industry, this is an excellent opportunity to promote a 30-day mental health challenge that your followers can easily subscribe to. Or if you are selling a type of product, you can encourage your customers to subscribe and become the first people to know about any upcoming deals, new products, and anything you consider important enough to keep them aware of.
Something you should keep in mind when implementing this strategy. Make sure when you are improving your lead generation plan, you request too much information. Customers have been known to back away if they are bombarded with a massive form to fill out. Stick with the usual form and make sure it remains no less than two fields, such as their name and contact info.
Also, make sure you integrate with your Customer Relationship Management system to provide and create your welcome newsletter to make sure that you can quickly follow up with content that is related to your advertising.
Conclusion
These are some of the best strategies you can implement into advertising strategies on Facebook and Instagram. Keep in mind that this coronavirus epidemic is only temporary, and soon enough, everyone will be back to full swing. At most, people will have to stay a month longer inside, but once they’ve all gone back to work, they’ll remember the brands that provided them with sweet deals and content to get through those difficult times. This will ensure they manage to repay you by returning to your service or at least spreading awareness of your business to others they think will benefit from said businesses.
Now that you’re done reading this, go out there and start driving your advertising campaign to a whole new level.
by Brooke Jensen | Apr 2, 2020 | Advertising, Marketing, Top
The ever-growing pandemic known as the coronavirus has caused massive disruption for almost every industry in the world. Digital agencies are no exception to this rule, having to take unusual action, such as making employees work from the comforts of their homes, closing down offices, stopping agency reviews, or halting any advertising plans. This crisis has caused many companies to reevaluate their business plans for the future to assess their strategies for the future.
Everyone is firmly keeping an eye on the headlines to stay up-to-date on the coronavirus, with most of them wondering when they can leave their homes and go back to their daily lives. Fortunately, this current epidemic won’t last forever, and businesses will flourish once again. While it may seem like things are becoming worse as the numbers of cases rise, it will eventually get better.
China, the country where this deadly virus started spreading, is slowly returning to their daily routine. Recently the last of the temporary Coronavirus hospitals are closing down in Wuhan, and most stores are starting to open up once again. Travel restrictions that were placed on residents will also be lifted sometime on April 8th.
Other countries affected by this country were only a few weeks behind the impact caused by the coronavirus, but eventually, the numbers of cases will start to decrease, and business will once again reopen. As a digital agency, you want to make sure you can stay on top of things and regain any revenue you may have lost during this time.
Although, just because the virus has prevented certain aspects of your business from being done doesn’t mean that you can’t continue to improve your agency. There are plenty of things a digital agency can do while they wait out for this epidemic to finally cease. Right now, there are plenty of business owners, particularly small business owners, who probably haven’t dealt much when it comes to digital marketing. This has given many digital agencies a great opportunity to reach out to these struggling businesses and help them understand the importance of improving their local SEO, for example.
Here are the top things digital agencies can do while waiting for the end of the coronavirus outbreak.
Reach out to businesses on social media
Everyone is currently dealing with the change the coronavirus has caused in our daily lives, even if most of us are not sick. Everyone is taking precautions by remaining home and practicing social distance to prevent the spread of this deadly virus. This has made it difficult for people to visit friends and family alike, nor can we go out and eat at our favorite establishments or go out and solely have a pleasant day out.
Fortunately, there are ways for people to stay in communication with one another, and that’s the power of social media. This has given an opportunity for most digital agencies to take the time to stand out during these trying times. With more people spending time on social media platforms, searching through various updates, and staying connected, the chances of people seeing your agency have risen.
There are various ways you can promote your agency, such as posting any resources you may have made about the importance of marketing and advertising. Or how a business can improve its local SEO and so on. Letting these people know that there ways they can improve their business through the power of the internet. You can also contribute to the local food banks or assist the unfortunate with their grocery shopping. Promoting these great ideas on social media will help with building your brand’s reputation.
Social media has become a powerful tool in the past decade, and it’s up to you to use it correctly by providing something that can get your brand out there.
Improving Local SEO
Since everyone is stuck at home, people will have more time on their hands and rarely step out of their homes unless they are running low on supplies. This means that people will be hopping onto their phones or desktop computers and checking out what’s the closest places for various services and supplies. This means you’ll want to make sure your business local SEO strategies have been up to date so it can easily be found on search engines. You want these potential customers to be able to effortlessly locate you online through the maps so they can go to you first.
Another thing you can do to increase your local SEO is to improve your review score by getting more positive reviews. Managing your online reputation is crucial during these trying times because this is an excellent opportunity to get in contact with your target customers during a disruptive time. Providing people with a service for their business during a stressful time such as this will likely lead to your agency gaining fantastic reviews.
Remember that this isn’t only a great time to improve your local SEO but others as well. Small businesses are likely to be unaware of what SEO even is, so getting the word out there by providing resources or offering to help improve it can benefit your agency’s reputation.
Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising
With the number of people staying home glued to their screens, this has become an ideal business opportunity to utilize PPC marketing to get in contact with customers and gain a competitive edge. Most businesses have most seen a decrease in PPC across the board since this epidemic has increased. Chances are this trend that will continue to go on for as long as this quarantine phase continues to be a part of our daily lives. With the decreasing amount of clicks, advertisers are more likely to reduce the amount of money given to publishers for every advertisement that is clicked. Because of this, digital agencies have been put in a position to come in and capture any of the lost market shares from others who are pulling back to save up money during this chaotic time.
Because of the reduced competition, other agencies willing to take the risk can capture more traffic and conversion. Trying to keep the best interest of your clients in mind to provide them with strategies that can help them maintain exposure while managing the spending budget will put you ahead of most of the competition.
Offering special discounts
During these weary times, you have been given a chance to show how much you care for your customer base by offering them special discounts that will allow you to retain them and ensure the revenue continues to flow. With the number of people who are at home searching through the internet, seeking discounts to save cash during this uneasy time, many of them will come to appreciate the offers you’ll give them.
This also gives you another opening for you to engage with your customer base and make sure you can maintain some steady flow of revenue that shall help keep your business up and running. Furthermore, by providing discounts and services for a lower price, you’ll be developing your brand reputation even further by having your customer base remember the deals you offered them during a harsh time. This strategy can be done by offering discounts through various social media platforms or PPC.
Content marketing
Content marketing has become the core strategy for most businesses out there, and digital agencies are no different. Take the time to continue adding more content onto your website, such as expanding upon your resources or updating information. Content marketing is crucial for spreading your brand awareness through social media platforms and PPC. Being able to provide people with information about specific services or products can go a long way. Everyone is stuck inside with not much to do, giving them the time to read up on things they’d usually not find the time to consume. Sure they may be worried about the virus, but some people will want their minds taken away from the doom and gloom that this epidemic is causing.
By providing them with content, you are offering them to learn more about the importance of digital agencies and what kind of service they can provide for them. This also helps improve your brand image and places your company in a position of authority. Even if you are not creating new content, you can always go back and update old content that’s either out of date or too short to provide any serious impact on SEO. Take this time to come up with content that can help spread your brand and gain more potential customers.
Stay ahead of the curve
SEO is crucial for boosting your business’s organic traffic to your website and gaining leads to your competition. Getting your brand on the front page of Google’s SERPs and any other search engine out there should be done. That is why when customers are once again searching for specific keywords, you’re the company that appears to answer their problems. Being able to rank up your SERPS takes time and well-made optimization strategies. If you don’t continue to optimize your website and content regularly, you’ll lose out on not only getting ahead of your competition but also falling behind in search results, leading to your business potentially losing out on revenue.
Preparing for resurgence
As we discussed earlier in the article, the coronavirus epidemic will eventually begin to slow down and fade away after a couple of months. Everything will start to go back to normal, and consumers will once again restart their spending habits. This is where SEO starts playing a large role in businesses since it’s a long-term strategy.
Depending on what you do now with your SEO campaign will eventually end up affecting your organic search traffic during the coming months. Completely halting your SEO campaign will lead to negative results on your revenue stream in the coming months when the coronavirus has started to disappear from the mainstream. So make sure you continue improving your SEO campaign and get ahead of the competition, who’s most likely stopped theirs.
Don’t give in to panic
Plenty of people have given in to their fears and panicked over the past few weeks. The recent toilet paper mass purchases people have been doing is a perfect example of this. More and more people are purchasing as much food as possible so they won’t have to go out and interact with other people. Becoming hysterical because the virus isn’t how you want to react if you wish to continue maintaining your business at optimal levels.
Panicking won’t provide you with any smart moves and instead cause you to blunder and miss out on an opportunity that can earn you far more than you’d thought was possible. Alternatively, you should take the opportunity to assess the situation and react to the change caused by the economy and industry. Remember, the economy may be in decline, but it hasn’t completely fallen apart. Money is still circulating, and people who require services will find them through search engines. This is an excellent opportunity to start implementing your strategies.
Stay in contact with employees
You are not the only one who’s stuck at home because of this epidemic, so areyour fellow staff members who work just as hard at the agency. This is a great time to spend some time chatting through live chats, such as Google Hangout or Skype, and improving your relationship with one another. Not only can you get a better understanding of them, but you can sit down and plan out what can be done to improve your agency. Coming up with strategies that will ensure your company remains standing long enough for the economy to start ramping up again.
Moreover, this is just a great way to stay in touch and help one another during these trying times. Some of your co-workers may need assistance in certain situations or simply need someone to talk to if they don’t share their home with another person. So staying in touch will provide both you and them with comfort and closeness like never before.
Conclusion
Times may be difficult at the moment, but soon the world will once again go back to its daily routine. Take the time to improve your standing amongst the competition and prepare to start getting all sorts of business thanks to your time spreading awareness of your business during this epidemic. And most importantly, stay safe and continue to remain indoors until the deadly virus has finally vanished from our lives. Hopefully, this article has given you some ideas on what you can do during this troublesome time.
