The outbreak of COVID-19 has created a lot of uncertainty for customers and businesses alike. While the situation may feel incredibly frustrating, there are ways to make the most of it. As many of many of us are temporarily shifting to a working-from-home business model, the opportunity doesn’t mean progress has to come to a halt.
Keep in mind that organic web content (aka SEO, web pages, blog, video) may take 90 to 120 days in order to outperform paid advertising in qualified leads and more converted customers. Use this spare time to upgrade your content marketing strategies and update your overall digital marketing during the crisis. Here’s how.Use this shift in spare time to upgrade your content marketing strategies and update your overall digital marketing during the shutdown. Here’s how.
1. Find Ways To Offer Compassion
While times have been stressful, it is up to businesses to understand the needs of their employees, their customers, and their partners. Shared compassion goes a long way in this situation. A lot of your customers and potential business partners are going to be so overwhelmed by the situation at hand that it is going to be challenging to reach them with your ads. You’re going to be competing with all kinds of frightening news and daily speculations in the media.
This is why it’s time to step back and see what work you are able to get done, preparing for when the COVID crisis ends. No matter your targeted audience, use compassion and demonstrate ways to help during this crisis while creating a lot of extra solid marketing assets to release later.
2. Upgrade Your Web Content
Good organic marketing, or marketing that naturally brings customers and potential partners to your business through useful or interesting content, takes a lot of time to set up. Relevant and timely content marketing performs better for a more qualified and educated prospect (or lead) than the average paid advertisement. Just look at your bounce rates: if your web pages have bounce rates exceeding 70%, then your content isn’t engaging the audience your ads are attracting. During the shutdown, take time to focus on your web content for more engagement. Evaluate what you already have in place, research what your competitors are doing, and consider implementing changes to your messaging hierarchy, attracting new leads for full sales funnel health.
3. Create New Cross-Channel Content
All this downtime with COVID is a great opportunity to create more time-consuming content expanding your company’s offerings. Do you have a YouTube channel? If not, the shutdown is a perfect opportunity to start creating videos. Think about the various topics you can create in your own home for video content and start racking up finished videos to post, both during the crisis and in the future. Use this time to showcase your work to other businesses and demonstrate your online presence as a well-rounded brand. Consider working with a content marketing agency to create more high-quality video and blog content. And remember, for all social posting, include valuable content like tips, views on news, recipes, how-to’s and always solicit action to a form or link back to your site using UTMs so you’re able to track engagement.
4. Create Reports, Webinars, and eBooks
Creating a report or an ebook showcasing your business will help your lead generation. While ebooks require impressive graphics and engaging content, take this moment to develop an outline for one.
Because creating an ebook is a time-consuming project, roughly taking four to six weeks to publish. Consider working with a growth marketing firm during the shutdown to help create your ebook or report. Creating your ebook now will set you up for success when the shutdown concludes and you’re ready to get back in business to start generating leads again.
5. Consider Your Website’s User Experience
Every brand’s website benefits in a strong and consistent user experience. Terrific marketing UX drives more engagement and conversions. Many focus their marketing efforts in driving as much web traffic as possible to increase bottom-of-funnel sales, take this opportunity to revisit the outer layers of your website. Putting added effort into your top of the funnel audience is an effective way to bring in more traffic and build awareness. Consider working with a UX practitioner who will help improve your website’s marketing power, design improvements for testing engagement and driving leads, and create an up-to-date, research-driven persona for your business.
No one wants this “extra time” ushered in by the coronavirus shutdown, but making the best of it by regrouping and creating a marketing roadmap will ensure your business’s success in the market’s recovery. Start working on organic marketing now to help save your money and resources in playing catch up later on, growing your top-of-funnel leads into converted customers, and bolstering your brand for a sustainable, prosperous future.
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