These are challenging times with the COVID-19 Pandemic taking center stage in our work, social and family lives. This has forced us all to change the way we think and we must do the same for our businesses while contributing in a positive manner. Here are 5 things you can do to better manage and keep your business resilient during this time:
Definitely maintain your marketing during this time to hold onto or even expand your market share. Promote positivity in your marketing messaging to strengthen your business’ image. Perhaps adjusting to a Brand Awareness Marketing Objective may be an important adjustment here. Also consider re-allocating your marketing and advertising budget to emphasize online marketing strategies and platforms. This will allow you to gain the benefits and exposure of the increased online usage activity occurring.
By adjusting your business’ product or service offerings, you will help your business stay relevant to current customer concerns. An example of this is the adoption and/or expansion of Delivery or Curbside Pick-Up services for restaurants. This has helped many restaurants not only survive but thrive in this environment. Medical and health care providers have also embraced the shift to Telemedicine video conferences in order to continue offering their services. This allows the offices to remain available to patients while keeping providers and patients safe in the process.
Following the latest recommendations by health officials, in terms of best practices for your employees, is a great idea that will help the engines of your company stay safe and productive. Allowing employees to work remotely when viable, shows them and your customers that you take health and safety seriously. If that is not an option, ensuring there are proper procedures in place with adequate space in the work environment and employee common areas will promote the safety and well-being for your employees by utilizing social-distancing practices among your workforce.
For example, if there are multiple tables in your business’ common areas for lunch breaks, ensure they are the proper distance away from each other to maintain the safety of your staff. If they are not, an option would be to limit the number of employees together at any one time or create schedules to ensure the business is following and applying the health officials’ recommendations for maintaining a safe work environment.
Our current circumstances have led to your customers and potential future customers spending a record amount of time online. Social Media platforms have benefited greatly with record traffic visiting and utilizing their platforms to stay connected with family, friends and colleagues, along with receiving their news updates and entertainment. This provides a fantastic opportunity to maximize your brand awareness and exposure objectives with so many people online. By emphasizing your brand on social media you'll be able to maintain and expand your market share when life gets back to normal. This also positions your business to convert more of the pent-up demand continuing to build momentum during this time.
We must all do our part to work together to overcome the current challenge. The responsibility of business owners to their business, customers, employees and communities is tremendous. By continuing to invest in your business, i.e. paying employees, vendors and even finally initiating that previously “shelved” investment in your website re-design, mobile app or web application development project, will position your company to benefit from things returning to normal and positively contribute to sustaining an economy we all depend on as our way of life. Check with the Small Business Administration, or SBA, and your bank to see if you qualify for disaster relief loans to help continue your business without interruption.
We hope these few tips help your business weather this storm. If there is anything we can do to help, please let us know.
Integrated Webworks, a digital agency since 2003, has served its clients with their expertise in Marketing, Website Design, Mobile Apps and Web Applications. Please contact us to learn how we can help you and your business.
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