“Times are tough and they are only going to get tougher, but if we all think smart and work to effectively adapt, then we can not only cushion the fall, but come out of the other end stronger! Thankfully, digital and online marketing can provide solutions that can be rolled out relatively quickly in a cost effective manner.”

THE OUTLOOK: 

Come Together.

As business owners, Nathan and I have regularly had to make make tough decisions about our business. In some ways we are fortunate that our primary offering since starting the business has been digital marketing. We are aware that not all businesses can operate in a low touch environment and industries such as hospitality and travel are going to struggle to survive and will severely contract with many talented people looking for work.

However, many years ago Australia was known as the "Clever Country" and compared to other nations we live in a highly nimble and adaptive economy, we're big enough to compete internationally, but small enough to adjust and change as a nation.

We care about each other and and come together in times of need (such as during the floods and recent bushfires). We share common a common goal of everyone having the right to live a nice and content life in what we all agree is a beautiful country, with our belief in 'having a fair go'... a phrase that embodies the idea of working hard and being rewarded for your hard work. 

There is no doubt, we will have a period of 6-18 months that will be unbelievably tough. Unfortunately for some people it will be tougher than others. Some families will unfortunately lose their loved ones either directly or indirectly (e.g. increased substance abuse and suicide) as a result of the virus and no doubt we will mourn. 

This is why, now more than ever, it is vital that we take care of ourselves, our loved ones, our neighbours and people that look like they are in need of help. Now more than ever we need to come together and follow the advice of our government. We need to listen to and support our health care professionals that are keeping people alive and the teachers/carers that are looking after our children so that we can continue to work.

We all need to stay calm and remember that this too shall pass and I am optimistic, that we will, as a nation, come out of the other end stronger. These words flow easily, whilst bracing myself at the same time. 

So, back to what this article was about. It's about hope, with a topic that I know a little bit about. It is about sharing with you some thoughts on things we have noticed for some time, but given today's environment, will be a much higher priority to implement in the short term by adjusting your business offering and pricing, and ultimately keeping your marketing smart and nimble.  

INSIGHT 1: 

Your website is your primary marketing tool, respect it, nurture it, optimise it!

We understand that B2B and B2C consumers do a lot of their research online and compare businesses based on the information that is available to them on their websites. This is where you have to shine and really attract your target market. The information on your website needs to be easy to navigate to quickly and convincingly answer the questions of your target audience.

How? Website design, user experience, page design, content development and content optimisation are just a few key areas that are vital to visually optimising your website to simply keep your target market engaged. Under investing in this area results in a negative experience, turning people away. Your website needs to be constantly monitored and reviewed which leads nicely into my next point.

Additionally search engine optimisation (SEO) is very important to ensure that you are found when your prospective customers are searching the internet, this is when they are looking and most likely ready to interact. If you're not there, you're invisible.

You can target your strategy by geographic location, so you don't have to compete against the entire internet for key search terms, but can aim to be found in your local are e.g. "psychologist on the northern beaches".

You need to know your competition and analyse their SEO capability to work on and implement a strategy to rank better than them on Google. Thankfully there are a few good tools around that can help in this area.

To understand a little more regarding the main focus areas for SEO, read our post on the "5 critical factors driving online marketing".

Overall, the point is that your website is a crucial sales and marketing tool, so you should double down in investing with making your website easily found and more usable to capture and retain attention whilst pushing lead generation and sales conversion.

INSIGHT 2:

Take care of your customers, communicate and deliver because positive online reviews matter.

We all do it, we read the reviews of products and services that we would like to spend our money on and we often trust review websites, whether it be Google reviews or some other third party website.

But, did you also know that many company's actually initiate the reviews on those websites and specifically target industry specific and reputable review websites? Well they do! The reason is that many of these website actually rank quite high and are a driver of traffic to their website, they act as an authority to put their target markets mind at ease and finally help improve SEO rankings.

So, don't disregard giving review websites and online directories a go, as your next client could come from one of those websites.

INSIGHT 3:

Email marketing is not dead, it is alive and kicking... but you still need to stand out.

This week we have noticed many CoVid-19 emails and as recipients, we need to decide which email is worth reading and which can go straight to the trash. Now more than ever, businesses with your email will be hitting your inbox, you are most likely already inundated.

What is our suggestion? Well, it's simply what it's always been. Deliver quality and engaging content, make sure that there is meat on the bone, be creative, make the email look good and professional and overall deliver high value content!

We delivered one email this week for a client of ours that is a wealth manager, we developed the email to do what it needed to, however the content was strong and timely as it was about all of the major events/crises since WWI and their respective impact on the Australian economy.

There was both a graph and a table that showed how the Australian economy has remained resilient over the past 100 years. The graph was very comforting as it really showed the strength of our nation and that we really can take control and influence our future, today! You can check out the email here, hopefully it gives you some comfort too!

Additionally, another client is an elected government politician. His team have been on the front foot with email communications and we have been delivering regular correspondence to his constituents during these extraordinary times.

The emails have been informative, timely and easy to digest with open rates higher than usual despite the increase in emails delivered to the mailing (that would normally see a decrease in engagement and increase in unsubscribes).

INSIGHT 4:

Your social media presence needs to be professional, responsive and most importantly, genuine.

Social media is very powerful, yes it is very noisy, but as a business you need to understand how to navigate through the noise and to not go chasing ghosts. We have written a number of articles on social media that may be worth reading around what consumers expect from brands on social media, how to limit how noisy you are on social media and how powerful reporting and tracking is with social media marketing with the current tools available.

The fact is, we all know what we don't like on social media and people are very savvy about what is good content and quick to criticise the not so good content. People are also increasingly using social media platforms like Facebook to get in touch with an organisation (over their web contact form) simply due to the nature that they can receive a relatively immediate response and treat it as an additional arm of customer service.

Luckily today we have tools that can help us:

• Schedule posts to our audience at the optimal times that they will engage.

• We can also have chat bots on certain social accounts like Twitter and Facebook that manage and direct the conversation prior to an human having to be involved.

• We can manage all of our key social media accounts on one platform to keep on top of them all.

• We can even manage who in the organisation has access to the accounts and have a process of approval for post posting and replying to ensure a high standard is maintained.

With all of the above, I am only talking about functionality, but the fact is that you also need to stick to the process and consider and develop your communications calendar combined with the art of copy writing, graphic design and social media marketing communications implementation.

INSIGHT 5:

Online and social media advertising and re-marketing is important, but you may need to re-adjust your creative and messaging strategy.

I will try to keep this area very brief, but overall, you can do some pretty cool targeting with online advertising and social media advertising. Did you know that almost 70% of online advertising is under the Google and Facebook ad platforms?

The advantage of this type of advertising is that you can test, measure and adjust your ad spend accordingly and essentially don't have to go all in from the get go. Additionally, with enough traffic volume to your website and/or landing page, you can re-market to the people that engaged with that content, meaning if some lands on a particular page on your website, you can show them advertising messages using the Google or Facebook ads platforms, pretty cool huh.

What I would highly suggest is to not overtly be selling all of the time with your advertising. Maybe right now, it should be less about selling and more about informing. During a time of uncertainty especially with income loss, people don't want an insensitive sales pitch, but want a nurturing, feel good message of hope and some certainty and leadership.

INSIGHT 6:

Consider developing e-commerce functionality with an online store and/or members area.

We have developed a few online stores and members areas on client websites. In the past we have mentioned the type on online solutions that we have done for clients and now traditional client facing businesses are asking about implementing these types of solutions.

The beauty is that there are many options, some more expensive than others, some more out of the box than others. Essentially all are pretty cost effective, so a combo of developing some advanced functionality on your website with SEO can be an investment to have an online offering.

Finally, with new limitations come new rules of engagement and new ways to think about what our economy needs and potential opportunities.

I suspect that people will get their thinking hats on and roll out new ways to deliver goods and services to the economy using existing and new technologies in creative ways, 3D printers were supposed to be the manufacturing of the future... well the future is here.

CONCLUSION

With social isolation and social distancing increasing, we suspect that people will be paying greater attention to digital and online marketing channels as this will be their primary source of information for living their lives. Additionally new technologies to deliver goods and services will be increasingly connected to websites and digital marketing solutions.

If you are trying to work out how to pivot your business or reach your target audience more effectively, then let's talk and problem solve together. It is often difficult to think up effective solutions if you don't understand what is tools are available. Thankfully many digital solutions today are a reasonable cost/price and yield a positive return on investment quite quickly.

Article by Simon Tokic. Simon has a few passions including basketball, music and surfing, however, most of his time is spent as a self proclaimed marketing geek applying fundamental marketing principles in strategic and creative ways. Prior to running Sydney marketing agency Mind Methods, Simon worked on leading brands including Sony Pictures, Universal Pictures, Glad, Chux, Armor All, Clorox, Barbeques Galore, Anglicare and more.