What is happening in the world has been unexpected for sure and it is going to force us all out of our comfort zone.

It also provides an opportunity to improve your digital offering. With the offline world being reliant on the online world, now is your chance to ‘digitize’ your business and look at ways to run with this opportunity.

So many business owners I know have been talking about improving their websites or creating an online course and getting to their online marketing when they have time. Now, what are you waiting for?

So, what do you need to consider your marketing in this changing environment? Let’s consider the following:

Change of strategy

Do you have an existing digital strategy? If not, now is the time to develop one. If you have one, take the time to review and consider how you need to tweak or pivot to meet the current opportunity. Perhaps you had plans to create an online course in 6 months and you need to make that happen much earlier. Or your content plan needs to be changed to be relevant to the current conversation. You should definitely have a strategy in place to manage what the next 6 months might look like. Plus be flexible and adaptable as situations continue to change.

Digitize your product

If you are operating in a traditional industry or business type, it’s time to consider how you can digitize your business. This is about taking your product knowledge and monetising it.

You have skills and expertise that people are already paying for so here is a chance to scale and offer to more people than you physically can do now.

Start with writing a list of the products or services you offer and the skills you can teach. Then consider which of these would be in demand online that your clients would pay for. What is already available in the market? How can you make your offering different?

More on this in another blog.

Improve your website

If your website is old, hard to navigate or not capturing traffic now is the time to create a new one or make changes to the existing one. Your website is your brand portal and often the first place people go to get information about you and your solutions. It is more important than ever that you are giving potential clients the information they need in a timely manner. If you can’t then your competition will.

Boost high-value posts that educate

Now is the time for education. I am personally writing a series of posts like this to help business owners navigate this new territory. I am also holding a free masterclass and other online chats to offer free advice.

If you are writing articles or blogs, get them seen my more people by boosting Facebook posts that educate and add value.

Selling your product or service online

How are you currently delivering your service? Selling consulting, coaching, training & workshops via online platforms like Zoom instead of face to face allows you to offer your existing product but in a different way. Example: A friend of mine had to cancel her cooking workshops so I suggested she still do them using Zoom. She could tell her attendees what they were cooking, what ingredients they needed and they could turn it into a fun & interactive online event. She hadn’t considered that and loved the idea.

You could create a mini-course, larger online subscription course, how-to classes, workshops and training sessions…. get creative and turn your knowledge into cash.

Drive traffic to your website (and capture it)

This is a simple marketing tip that you should be doing anyway. But so many businesses aren’t which is why I will mention it again.

Create a lead generation piece that allows you to capture visitors to your website.  A simple PDF, checklist, quiz or 3 part video series are all simple ways to swap their email address for your valuable information.

NB: these should not be about the services you provide but about solving a problem your target audience has.

Add online chat services

Online chat will be an important part of service delivery and real people are not the same as chatbots. In times of high demand, people want to talk to real people not chatbots. I have experienced this personally in the last week, since being in enforced self-isolation due to overseas travel.

Chat2 is an Australian company that can help are currently offering a 3-month free trial. Get yourself set up and working now and be ahead of your competition.

Find Chat 2 here > https://chat2.com/

 

Teach new skills and open new markets

One thing this has highlighted is the holes in team communication, skills and ability to pivot as a team. Use this as an opportunity to teach your team new skills that enable them to work more effectively remotely or to manage client enquiries and projects.

This is also an opportunity to look at expanding into new markets both locally and overseas. Where is there an opportunity for you?

 

We should still focus on business as usual, we might just need to change the way we deliver our expertise to our clients. Businesses who are taking advantage of market conditions to redefine their business offering or find new revenue streams are the ones who are going to come out of the stronger and fitter. As Marie Forleo always says “everything is figurouroutable”