In these difficult times when Corona Virus has affected thousands of lives across hundreds of countries and disrupted businesses, it has become even more important to keep your business growing.
But how can you continue communicating with your customers?
Clearly it is a time to Stay Indoors and as a good citizen, keep your staff and customers safe!
But at the same time as a small business, you have bills to pay and salaries to take care of. Well amongst the midst of problems arises the opportunity to be INNOVATIVE and do something different!
Here are a few marketing channels to help your business thrive!
1) Get high on Social Media!
With people having plenty of time on their hands, they are but natural scrolling through social channels and spend more time online looking for information, entertainment and education! This is the chance to double or even triple your social media interactions by
- Educating prospective customers about your product/service
- Making videos on Benefits of your product/service
- Offer great discounts and membership perks
You can particularly benefit, if your product/service is online like educational software, online book, marketing master class, webinar etc and can be provided without physical delivery.
Here in an Example
In this Facebook Ad, Mindscroll foundation provides NEE/JEE/CET/MH-CET Self Study Software to students who are appearing for these exams. Due to curfew, all entrance exam classes are shut and students are looking for alternative study materials online.
2) Connect with your audience by sending an SMS
SMS has been one of the strongest pillars of marketing for a long time.
MYTH: I don’t get new customers from SMS?
Reality: Your SMS is as good as your data!
Simply put, a database of new and existing customers is crucial for your SMS success. No offense to those providing 1,00,000 PAN Indian customer database for less than Rs 1000, but the accuracy of this data has always been a question of debate.
But if you can get the right offer across to your prospects, SMS is proven to increase your sales.
{SMS marketing or Bulk Sms as it is commonly known is highly successful when used for upselling to your existing customers or retargeting existing customer with new offers.}
SMS marketing is also increasingly used for providing customer service or as a support mechanism for various web applications.
No harm in dropping an SMS to your customers and telling them that while your office is closed due to Covid-19 situation but your Customer Service or Support Helpline is still operating and your staff is safe working from home! This shows that you care for your customers and ready to support them!
Click this link to know more How to boost your sales with Bulk SMS Marketing in 2020
Here is an Example
In this example, Sorav Jain who is a Social Media Marketing expert is using Bulk Sms to retarget his customers who have previously shown interest in similar events!
He wisely follows up with a second SMS an hour before the event starts!
3) Whatsapp Marketing
With Whatsapp increasingly being a preferred means of communication Business Whatsapp is not a choice but a necessity every business should have.
You can easily install Whatsapp plugin on your website and get direct Whatsapp messages from people visiting your website.
An important thing to remember like any other means of marketing DO NOT SPAM! The worst thing you can do is to Spam this space with too many and irrelevant messages to customers or prospective customers! Remember here you are not letting people choose to see your ads like FB or Google ads. Instead, you are sending a message to them without their permission. You are not even sure if they are ready for your service or they already use something similar to your service.
The best way to use Whatsapp is to use it as an extension to providing customer service But of course with the due permission of your customers or after speaking with prospective customers!! What I have observed over 2019 and now 2020 is that people are increasingly willing to receive your product/service offerings or company profile through Whatsapp once they have spoken with you over the phone!
View video to Know more: How Does Whatsapp for Business Work – Easy Guide
4) Facebook Messenger Marketing
Facebook Messenger is a powerful tool to retarget those who have interacted with your Page and/or FB AD.
You can automate your FB messenger with Chat Bots and save a lot of time and resources trying to answer common questions about your product or service.
There are many ChatBot providers that are free to use and can do the above job efficiently.
ChatBots like Chatfuel offer premium services where you can send promotional offers, product information a new store opening messages, etc to all those who have interacted with your page/ad in some of the other ways.
You can also integrate Chatbot to your website for ease of communication!
ChatBots V/S Email Marketing?
Statistics speak for itself!
ChatBots have a 70–80% open rate, and a click rate of 15–60% as compared to Emails that have a 25% open rate and a 4% click-through rate!
View video to Know more: How to use ChatBots for Facebook Messenger
Use these tricks to survive the crisis and increase your sales!
If you are using any other tricks don’t forget to mention them in the comments!