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Coronavirus: Working on your business

As nonessential businesses close down across the world, more and more small business owners are left with significantly more time on their hands. However, just because your business isn’t open and running as usual, doesn’t mean you can’t use this time to set it up for success once the current health crisis has resolved.

We’ve compiled a list of things that you can do right now to stay productive and accelerate growth once life goes back to normal:

Develop a New Product

Do you have new product ideas that have been stuck on the backburner? Now is the time to develop them!

Benefits of Developing a New Product
  • Create additional revenue streams
  • Capture greater percentage of market
  • Boost company reputation
  • Foster new business relationships
  • Increase brand awareness

Podcast

Podcasting is the radio of the 21st century, and with its popularity growing, now is a great time to start your own.

Benefits of Starting a Podcast
  • Reach a larger audience
  • Maximize existing content
  • Boost website traffic
  • Position company as an industry leader
  • Create personal connection with your audience

Increase Social Media Presence

Social networking is a key part of marketing strategy. If your company does not already have a strong presence on the big networks, such as LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Instagram, now is the time to get established. If you are already active, use this time to improve strategy, processes, content and more. Consider testing out paid ads and check out Facebook’s new Creator’s Studio. 

Benefits of Increasing Social Media Presence
  • Reach a larger audience
  • Increase brand awareness
  • High conversion rates
  • Boost brand loyalty and authority
  • Improve customer relationships
  • Cost-effective
  • Raise inbound traffic
  • Improve SEO rankings

Blog

A blog is an integral piece of your website and marketing strategy, regardless of the size of your business. So, if you do not currently have one, use this downtime to up your content marketing game.

Benefits of Blogs
  • Drives traffic to your website
  • Increases SEO
  • Positions your company as an industry leader
  • Improves customer relationships

Create Lead Magnet

Customer acquisition is one of the most challenging tasks that business owners face. However, with a lead magnet, or several lead magnets, it becomes much easier.

A lead magnet is a “freebie” that you can offer to your audience as an incentive in exchange for their contact information. Common types of lead magnets include guides, checklists, cheat sheets, how-tos, reports, eBooks, toolkits, and video trainings.

Keep in mind that not any old lead magnet will do. It needs to be geared to your target audience and should solve a problem that they have.

Benefits of Lead Magnets
  • Build trust and authority in your business
  • Help grow email list
  • Brand your business
  • Shown to increase website conversion rates

Update your Website

Improving your website is always a good idea. If your website looks dated, consider using this time to redesign it. Or, if you already have a design you are happy with, spend time increasing SEO, adding engaging CTAs, rewriting copy, sourcing better images and graphics, removing or updating out-of-date content, tightening security, improving responsiveness and increasing accessibility. 

Benefits of Improving Your Website
  • Attract more customers
  • Reduce bounce rate
  • Reduce risk of getting hacked
  • Look more professional

Email Marketing Campaigns

Email marketing is an essential tactic for businesses of all sizes. According to Pew Research, 92 percent of adults in the United States use email and 61 percent of those users are, on average, using email every day. If your business does not already utilize this marketing tactic, now is the time to implement it.

Benefits of Email Marketing Campaigns
  • Cost-effective
  • Processes can be automated
  • Ability to personalize content to individuals or groups
  • Collect important data on target audience

Take an Online Course

Learn new skills or improve existing skills by using this time to take an online course. As a business owner, continuing your education is essential to staying current on business practices and industry trends.

Benefits of Taking an Online Course
  • Increase your skillset
  • Learn wherever, whenever
  • Generally cheaper than in-person courses
  • More diverse course offerings
  • Improve self-discipline

Create an Online Course

You could also consider creating your own online course related to your field of expertise. This is a great way to build a passive income and establish yourself as an industry leader and influencer. 

Benefits of Creating an Online Course
  • Earn a passive income
  • Reach a larger audience
  • Build trust and authority in your business
  • Help grow email list
  • Brand your business

Develop an Affiliate Program

Affiliate marketing is a great strategy for increasing lead generation, scaling your business and establishing a passive income stream. Now is the perfect time to develop your program and get it running.

Benefits of Developing an Affiliate Program
  • Boost brand awareness
  • Low risk
  • Earn passive income
  • Build valuable partnerships
  • Save time on marketing
  • Scale your business
  • Increase consumer trust
  • Low start-up costs
  • Increase targeted traffic
  • Improve SEO
  • Diversify your income stream
  • High ROI

Develop a Marketing Strategy for the next 6 months to 1 year

Obviously, life doesn’t always go as planned. We’re living a perfect example of that right now. However, it is generally advisable to plan ahead when it comes to your marketing strategy. 

Benefits of Planning Marketing Efforts in Advance
  • Stay ahead of competition
  • Focus on big goals
  • Assess needs of audience
  • Reduce stress
  • Increase likelihood of success

Document processes

Process documentation is an essential step towards efficient business operations. However, it is often a time-consuming task that many businesses place on the backburner. 

Benefits of Process Documentation
  • Improve efficiency, quality and consistency
  • Mitigate risks and demonstrate compliance with industry requirements, such as HIPAA
  • File and defend patents and trade secrets
  • Ability to sell systems or business
  • Easily train staff

Improve processes

Once you have documented processes, it is easier to look at them more closely and identify areas that could be improved in order to increase efficiency and quality of output.

Benefits of Improving Processes
  • Improve efficiency, quality and consistency
  • Establish brand as a leader
  • Ability to sell processes

Finish That Book

Have you been trying to write a book for the last few years? Now is the time to finish it! And once you’ve done, we recommend Digital Product Delivery for digital publishing of your eBook.

Benefits of Finishing Your Book
  • Fulfill personal and/or professional goals
  • Increase brand awareness
  • Establish yourself as a leader in your industry

Reorganize Your Space

Does your office, store or showroom feel cluttered, drab or stale? Use this time to reorganize your work areas.

Benefits of Reorganizing Your Space
  • Create inviting environment for customers
  • Increase productivity
  • Decrease stress

What will you do to keep yourself busy over the next few weeks? We’d love to hear about it! Comment below or contact us today!

on Friday, 10 April 2020. Posted in Business Strategy, Insights