After dealing with COVID for the last year and a half, everyone is more than ready for it to be over. However, numbers are rising in some places, and anxiety is once again in the air. Locally, several nonprofits have changed their Autumn events to a virtual platform, and business owners have started to wonder whether capacity limits or even closures could come back. While total shutdown seems unlikely (fingers crossed), there will no doubt be plenty of people choosing to stay home and keep as much distance as possible once the weather is cold. The smart move for businesses and organizations is to have a contingency plan for the coming months. Here are some tips for retaining your clients or customers no matter what the winter brings:
- Have a way to stay in touch, and build your email list now. Outreach is vital if you don’t want to be out of mind while you’re out of sight. Email marketing platforms allow you to save your contacts and create email campaigns (newsletters, announcements, sales letters, etc.) and send them to everyone on your contact lists at once. Constant contact and Mailchimp are the most popular and easy to use for novices. Both allow you to segment your mailing lists into categories and add sign up forms to your website. They also both have fairly intuitive WYSIWYG editors. Mailchimp has a free plan with limited features if you have 2000 or fewer contacts, whereas Constant Contact has a plan for under $10 a month.
- Have a social media strategy. If you aren’t actively using social media to promote your business or nonprofit, you’re missing out on some of the most effective free marketing out there. However, free doesn’t really mean free because of the time commitment involved. Results require consistency, so if you’re spread thin, make sure you’re only focusing on one or two main channels to begin with. Focus on where your customers are. If you’re B to B or a nonprofit looking for sponsorships or donors, LinkedIn is the place to be. If you’re artistic or have a lot of visual messaging, try Instagram. Facebook is by far the most popular social media channel, but some people have reservations surrounding their content and privacy policies. Twitter is good for short messages if you have time to respond to comments, while YouTube and Tiktok are popular for videos. One important consideration here is the age of your audience. A younger demographic rarely trusts a brand with no social media presence, and they probably aren’t going to see your content on LinkedIn unless they’re professionals. An older audience will see your Facebook page but they won’t seek out your Tiktok.
- Optimize your website for selling goods and services or taking donations. This is potentially the most important thing you can do, as all of your other efforts will be meaningless if no one has a way to pay you. At a bare minimum, make sure your website is secure and easy to use.
- If you sell physical goods, keep delivery and curbside pickup as options even when tings are safe and going well. COVID or no, people have no intention of giving up certain conveniences that came with the pandemic. For better or worse, customers expect pickup and delivery to be here to stay.
- Lastly, make sure you can be flexible and adapt to whatever conditions come your way, but don’t compromise the things that define your brand. Hold firmly to what sets you apart, and try to be less rigid about the rest. Eventually, this will end. However, doing business at a distance is probably going to be part of the new normal.
Substance and Style 