What strategy should you adopt to boost sales after the COVID-19 crisis?
In the midst of the coronavirus crisis, it’s time for many businesses to prepare for the economic recovery. But what can you do and prepare for right now?
Stay in touch with your customers
Even if your business is temporarily closed, it is essential to continue communicating with your customers, for several reasons:
- Reassure clients of your company's stability for future projects
- Listen to your customers' needs to better meet their expectations
- Restore consumer confidence; highlight the company's values
If these three approaches are implemented effectively, they will serve as a springboard for a faster and stronger recovery after the crisis.
For our first point, the It is important to communicate the strength of your company, because, unfortunately, many companies will face difficulties. Since this is also an economic crisis, it’s important to adapt in order to weather it and focus on both internal and external communication. Externally, communicating with your customers will be essential to reassure them that business will continue as usual. By showing that you’re the right partner and that they can entrust projects to you, you’ll be able to reassure them. Don’t forget your suppliers—they’ll also be reassured to know that you’ll be able to pay your bills.
Regarding the second point, as José Fernandez, CMO of d’Ieteren Auto, noted, “In times of crisis, the first recommendation is not to communicate, but to listen.”
Set up a survey to gauge your customers’ opinions. What are their expectations? Are they satisfied with your products or services? How do they view the resumption of business activities? All of these questions will be very helpful in helping you adapt to the reality your customers are facing. There’s no point in communicating about topics that aren’t “resonating” with them—or worse, that are inappropriate at this time.
Position yourself as a partner and find solutions to meet your customers’ needs. Those needs will have changed in the wake of this crisis. It’s therefore a good idea to revisit your customer personas in order to tailor your communication and campaigns accordingly.
Regarding the third point, which applies more specifically to the B2C sector (retail, banking, leisure, etc.), it’s important tostay in touch with your customers to get your business and sales back on track as quickly as possible.A brand can quickly be “forgotten” if it doesn’t nurture a relationship with its customers and community. To do this, especially during a crisis, you can highlight your values through actions that reflect them. Words alone aren’t enough—taking action is essential.
A Few Marketing Ideas to Boost Your Sales
We all want to emerge from lockdown as soon as possible. Although this will happen gradually, now is the time to start preparing. Here are a few marketing ideas to help you restart your business and generate sales after the crisis:
- Be active on social media. Since the start of the crisis, Belgians have been spending 30% more time on Facebook, Instagram, and other platforms. While a sales pitch isn’t recommended, maintaining visibility is crucial—otherwise, you’ll have to work twice as hard to regain the level of brand awareness you had before the crisis. To do this, present a new value proposition that appeals to all segments of society.
- Create aneditorial calendar for the next 12 months. Content marketing will be one of the keys to boosting your sales by generating leads and driving traffic to your website. Just a reminder: 62% of brands aren’t delivering the right content. You can set yourself apart from your competitors.
- "Improving the customer experience" is certainly one of the buzzwords of 2020, but it will be all the more important after this crisis, for two reasons.
- With the COVID-19 crisis, customers—whether individuals or businesses—have discovered (albeit somewhat reluctantly) the power of digital platforms and other e-commerce sites. Most of these platforms have focused on the customer experience, which is therefore becoming a standard feature of their service. It’s hard for a consumer to go back to the way things were once they’ve had a taste of it.
- After several weeks of lockdown, people will want to rediscover their freedom and the joys of life. A brand that can provide a warm, human connection, a wonderful experience, and one that surprises its customers will succeed, because it will satisfy the need for recognition that every human being seeks (see Maslow’s hierarchy of needs).
- Work on a "comeback" offerto encourage your customers to start shopping again.
- Tailor your SEA (Google Ads) campaignsbased on search volumes and user queries—both on desktop and mobile. Indeed, with the lockdown, consumer behavior has changed and adapted to the situation. Certain industries, such as e-lifestyle and non-food e-commerce, are booming. This presents an opportunity to attract this audience to your site by increasing your daily budget. On the other hand, other sectors—such as the travel industry—have come to a near or complete standstill. In this case, it’s advisable to pause generic search campaigns and focus solely on branding to continue communicating with your audience.
- Repurpose your productif it can meet a new need. This applies particularly to large companies, but not exclusively.
- Offer a free trial periodfor your product or service, because in this era of accelerated and forced digital transformation, companies with a digital offering will be able to—and will have—boosted adoption of their tools. For example, Microsoft Teams more than doubled its user base in just 3 months.
- Launch an awareness campaign to remind the public that you’re still here and announce that you’ve resumed operations.
- Optimize your local SEO. The coming months of reopening will be gradual, and borders will most likely remain closed, so local businesses are set to get a boost. It’s therefore important to optimize your presence on local search engines (Google Maps, Google My Business, Store Locator, etc.).
The COVID-19 crisis has accelerated the digital transformation and, as a result, a shift in consumer behavior
In Belgium, before the coronavirus crisis, 17% of employees occasionally worked from home. Today,more than 90% of employees are working from home(source: l’Echo).
Obviously, all of this has an impact on how a business is managed and operated. For years now, we’ve been hearing about digital transformation, with adoption rates varying depending on the industry, the size of the company, and—above all—the strategic choices made by management. It’s clear that even the most reluctant companies are now being forced to adopt digital tools on a massive scale just to keep their operations going, even if only to a limited extent. On this topic, I invite you to read Thierry Geerts’ book, *Digitalis: How to Reinvent the World*.
Your employees' behaviors have changed. With remote work and the use of various digital tools, many companies have had to adapt—or will have to adapt quickly—if they want to survive.
More than ever, people, technology, and the local community will beimportant in the coming months and years!
P.S.: This article was written and published in May 2020 on the Universem blog by Simon-Pierre.