Right now, the health of many businesses, big and small, are suffering with the devastating effects of COVID-19. Government restrictions on social distancing has forced the closure of thousands of Australian businesses and, sadly, that number is growing every day.
There is no shortage of educational messages on how you can better protect yourself from COVID (and that can only be a good thing), but you might be asking what can you do to better protect the health of your business?
While many things are out of your control, now more than ever, making sure your digital footprint is fit, healthy and ready to tackle business post COVID-19, is critical to your future success.
1. Website wellness
We are all self-isolating (if you’re not, you should be) and our screens have become our window to the outside world. More and more customers are seeking refuge at home behind their screens.
In fact, did you know the average person has increased their screen time in iso by 70% and online shopping for just Coles and Woolies has increased by 189%! Australia Post has been delivering on average 1.8 million parcels per day and store purchases across the board are up by a staggering 473%. That says a lot about online shopping consumption and prompts the question; how healthy is your website and is working as hard as it should? And if you need to make a few changes, how would you even pay for it?
There are a couple of ways to tackle both. Firstly, you can get a very quick understanding of your website health by looking into your Google Analytics. If you don’t know how, and it all seems a bit hard, you could reach out to the professionals for a quick audit – Balmer Agency would be more than happy to help you out.
Assuming your site needs a bit of a boost. Paying for it might be the next giant challenge. Thankfully the Government has stepped up with a $500 million-dollar cash injection (in Victoria alone – there are incentives at state level across the country), to help companies like yours build a strong digital presence in this fragile environment. It’s worth exploring if your business meets the criteria, check it out here.
2. Social media spruce up
A new normal is coming, but until then your business needs to quickly pivot its activity and innovate to push through this downturn. Look at your competitors, think about your business offering and who your audience is. Now is the perfect time to review all your messaging across all your social platforms.
Be present in the market
With everyone’s screen time up, you have a captive audience so it’s essential to be seen. For example, what is your business saying on LinkedIn? How you communicate with your networks and communities right now, is more important than ever. Staying connected, while being transparent, helpful and responsive, is critical. Whether you use the platform to connect with customers and suppliers or just to thank and reassure staff, it’s important and to reach out and be heard.
Check your tone of voice
It’s essential that your business voice is sympathetic to the changing world around us. Doing a quick check that your business is using an empathetic and relatable tone of voice when connecting with existing, and new, customers at every touchpoint is a simple way to make sure your business isn’t sounding like an insensitive bot.
Simply tweaking your messages may sound like a small change, but it can make a huge difference to how your audience relates to your business and remembers how you connected with them during these challenging times.
Build a strategic roadmap
Now’s the time for business owners to be reviewing their Ads strategy to ensure they’re reaching the right people with the right offer. You can optimise your social campaigns to improve your results by running through these key steps:
- Set goals – and make sure you’ve correctly chosen the right campaign objective.
- Know who your audience is – Review all your campaigns and find the top performers who are getting you the most sales, traffic or leads.
- Identify your key messages – What is the most important message you need to get across that will inspire action?
- Review your creative – You can also retest creative that performed well pre Covid19 – just make sure it’s still effective and relevant.
- Evaluate performance, and set KPIs – you need to know which ads are driving your leads, so turn off any ads that are leaking money.
- Stalk your competitors’ ads – it’s good to know who else is in the market, and you can find out through the Facebook Ads Library.
And remember: when strategically analysing your paid marketing efforts, make sure you’ve established your businesses KPIs, and if you’re unsure on if there is wastage within your campaign spend, it might be wise to have an ads strategist review your campaigns at Balmer.
3. Optimise your optimisation
SEO is key right now. Online conversations are changing daily as people navigate life in isolation. By staying on top of social trends and investing in search engine optimisation now you will be better prepared to connect with customers.
Why SEO?
- Think of Google as a shopping centre, and your search ranking as your storefront. You need to ensure that your storefront is visible to the public in order to attract visitors. Therefore, establishing a prime position in Google search results is key to reaching new customers.
- You may need to cut on paid campaign budgets like PPC and paid social, hence SEO is there to help.
- SEO is long term. Optimise your website now so that it will aid in business recovery and growth long after the pandemic is over.
4. start your business health kick
Next step, map out a content plan. Yep, like a squirrel preparing for winter there has never been a better time to list, create and bank engaging content, ready to post. This is the time to get it right so you can get an active jump on your competition while they are busy rebooting their business.
Time is usually in short supply – but right now you can strategically focus on what digital elements of your business needs improving.
- Do you need a content plan, but don’t know where to start?
- Do you need to redesign your website?
- How are you going to reach new customers?
- How do you effectively run ads without wasting money?
The digital grant is an option for your business to engage marketing professionals to help you move forward quickly, and advise you on the best plan for your business. This is the perfect time pause, think, and actively plan for the future while being ahead of your competitors.
We understand it’s not easy finding time to work on your business when you’re busy running it, however giving your business a quick health check right now can make a huge difference down the track. Need a hand? Get in touch for a free online consultation, or click here to find out more about how you can apply for a $10,000 digital business grant.
