Blog

11 Marketing Ideas to Get You Through the Pandemic

Have you cut back on marketing due to the COVID-19 pandemic? You’re not alone. A lot of business owners are trying to save money by reducing their spending.

Cutting back is understandable and may be necessary, but marketing isn’t a luxury for your business. It’s a necessity. And it’s possible to keep things going even if you need to reduce your spending. Here are X ideas to help you stay in the marketing flow.

#1: Focus on Social Media

According to Statista, Americans are spending more time on social media now than they did before the pandemic. That translates to an opportunity for businesses that need low-cost ways to engage their target customers.

It’s a good time to share the ways your business is coping with the COVID-19 pandemic and highlight the ways your business can help people cope with social distancing and stay-at-home orders. You may also want to consider boosting your ads or running a page...

By now, most small business owners know they need to be active on social media. Regardless of your industry or niche, your customers expect to find you there. And social media’s free, so… it’s all easy, right?

I wish it were that easy. In fact, I notice that a lot of small business social media pages are missing the mark. They’re not getting the engagement – or the leads – they want and they’re not sure why.

Fortunately, the answer is pretty simple, you’re making mistakes and they’re probably the same ones that other small businesses are making.

What should you do? Identify the mistakes and stop making them! Here they the most common social media missteps and what you can do to fix them.

Being Inconsistent with Your Account 

When people follow brands on social media, they want to know what kind of content they’ll be getting. If you look at big brands, you’ll notice that they have a clear rubric they use to...

In the world of digital marketing, traffic gets a lot of attention. In fact, it seems like you can’t go anywhere online without reading a traffic metaphor invoking red and green lights, rush hour, and things of that nature.

Don’t get me wrong. Traffic is important. But ultimately, it’s not the amount of traffic you get that will determine the success of your business.

Conversions are the name of the game.

And guess what? I have good news for you. You can stop beating your head against a wall trying to figure out how to get more people to your site. Instead, I’m going to show you how to take the traffic you already have and increase your conversions to grow your business.

Buckle up and let’s hit the road! (Sorry, I couldn’t resist.)

Simplify Your Forms 
There’s lots of evidence showing that simple forms get more conversions than complex forms. In fact, removing a single field from your form could boost your conversions by as much...

You’ve got a big following on social media.

So what?

Unless those followers are paying you for products or services, they don’t mean much. I’m not saying that social media followers aren’t important in some ways. Having a lot of followers sends a signal to potential customers that you have a popular brand. It can help you get more traffic and attention.

That said, sales and profits are the name of the game. If those followers aren’t buying from you, they’re not doing anything for you in real terms.

The solution? Take those fans and followers and convert them into paying customers. Here’s what to do.

Get to Know Your Audience 
As the owner of a small or medium-sized business, you may not have given a lot of thought to what makes your customers tick. And yet, customer analysis is the key to turning casual fans and followers into customers.

Creating a detailed customer persona can help you understand your audience. Your persona should...

Is your marketing budget tiny – or non-existent? It’s a common problem with local businesses who put everything they make into inventory and payroll.

If you don’t have much to spend on marketing, you might wonder how you can ever grow your business. The good news is that there are plenty of things you can do to attract new customers without spending a dime.

I’ve compiled 10 of my favorite free marketing ideas for you to try.

#1: Facebook Live Video              
You might think of video marketing as expensive, and it certainly can be if you hire a professional videographer.

How long has it been since you did anything with your company's Facebook page (or Twitter or Instagram)?

If it’s been a long time, then you might feel stuck.

How can you resurrect your social media presence?

Is it possible?

Should you bother?

The short answer is yes, it’s possible. You’ll need to be methodical and persistent.

Here’s what you’ll need to do.

Update Your Page
The first step is to update your page. Look at your profile and make sure that it includes:

• The full name of your business
• Your address
• Your telephone number
• The URL of your website
• Your email address

You should also update any additional information that’s outdated. For example, if you’ve changed your logo then you should add your new one. Have a new sign in front of your store? Take a new picture and post it.

Decide on Social Media Goals
The next step is to set some reachable goals for your social media marketing. Marketing is most effective when you have a clearly defined...

Content marketing is all about content. That’s obvious. What isn’t obvious to many local business owners is that they don’t need to be the ones to create every piece of content they share.

The term for using content created by someone else for marketing purposes is called “content curation.” The word ‘curation’ is a clue to what it involves. It’s not about throwing up any old piece of content on your Instagram or Facebook feed and hoping for the best.

In the days before the internet, local marketing was simple. You paid for a listing in your local Yellow Pages, printed flyers, and maybe took out an ad in the local paper. People knew who you were and where you were.

Then web marketing came along and changed everything. At first, the recommendation was to focus on general keywords. But over the years, Google and other search engines have changed their algorithms.

Now, they prioritize local search over everything else.

What does that mean? In short, it means that creating compelling local content isn’t optional. It’s as necessary as oxygen. You’ve got to show potential customers that you’re part of a community – and that means that you’ve got to think about more than giving out your address.

The Basics of Local Marketing
I’ve already written a lot about local marketing, but I think it’s important to include a summary of how to optimize your website and content for local search. Keep these...

Social media marketing is a must – but getting organic engagement is becoming increasingly difficult. With sites like Facebook and Twitter tweaking their algorithms constantly, local businesses need proven strategies to ensure that their customers see and engage with their posts.

Engagement isn’t a one-size-fits-all proposition, but it’s undeniable that some strategies to increase engagement work better than others.

So, instead of wasting your time with a bunch of ideas that may not work, let’s focus on the ones that do. Here are some of the most reliable ways to get the social media engagement your business deserves.

Live Video
The thing about static social media posts is that they’re, well… static. People may engage with them or they may not – but there’s no real incentive to jump in and get involved.

The same cannot be said of live video. Live video is of the moment – and it requires audience participation.

Instead of...