The Importance of Communicating with Customers During the COVID19 Pandemic
COVID19 has laid waste to the global economy. To be clear, the situation sucks. Tens of thousands of people will not survive to see 2021. Many businesses will fail, too, forced to lock their doors and with no way to sell their merchandise or interact with their customers. There is a ray of hope here, though. You don’t have to lose touch with your audience. With digital technology, you can still remain in communication and relevant.
Build Your Brand
While your business may be forced to close and your customers may be required to stay at home, you can and should use this opportunity to build your brand. That doesn’t mean you need to be opportunistic. It means that you need to be compassionate, that you need to educate your audience, and that you need to position your brand as a relevant authority with something valuable to say.
If you cannot remain at the forefront of your customers’ minds, they will forget about you. This is even truer today than ever before, when we’re looking at an enforced lockdown that might last for months.
The Methods Available
While you likely understand the importance of building your brand during the COVID19 pandemic, you might be less clear on how to go about doing that. Thankfully, it’s simpler than you might imagine.
Email – One of the most direct routes to achieving your goal here is to use email marketing to your advantage. Put that email list to work and create email content that offers value, provides hope, that uplifts, or that educates your audience. It doesn’t even have to be directly related to your business or your products, although you should find a way to tie the core ideas of the email content to your brand’s character, ethics, or values.
Social Media – Now is the time to be present on social networks like Facebook and Instagram. Because they cannot go to work, or even leave their homes for anything but the essentials, your audience is flocking to these platforms. It is essential that you are there, as well. You need to have an active social media presence, and you must do more than just post prewritten updates. It’s vital that you take an active role in the conversation. Interact with your audience and build your brand. Show the values and ethics at the core of your business in those interactions so that when the dust finally does settle (and it will), they remember you for all the right reasons.
Content – Want to build your brand? There are few better ways than content marketing, particularly today, when people have more free time than ever before. This means they’ll be more likely to read your blog posts, to dive into your reports and eBooks, to peruse your whitepapers, and more. This is your chance to position your brand as an authority through quality content that really matters.
In the end, COVID19 will pass and things will begin to return to normal. By building your brand now, you help ensure that you’ll be there when that happens. If you’re struggling to identify the right brand-building options for you, we can help. Get in touch today to arrange an online consultation.
