Considering the current economic context, caused by the coronavirus pandemic, businesses around the world are already seriously affected and unfortunately the negative effects are just starting to appear. Due to the economic unbalance, the start-ups are most prone to danger - not only because they lack a large client base that would allow them to lose some, but also because of the internal instability caused by the lack of material resources to go through this period of low (or even negative) cash flow.

In an attempt to help small and medium-sized businesses, both B2C and B2B, we’ve put together some recommendations on how to increase the efficiency of your online marketing campaigns during this difficult economic context:

Show empathy and solidarity in your communications

If a business can help people in difficult times, by adapting their products and services in order to encourage prevention, they shouldn’t be even thinking whether to do it or not! Brands need to promote and encourage cautious behaviour on all available channels - this will not only have a positive impact on the business, but will also gain the trust of the potential clients - and also increase the loyalty of the existing ones.

There are numerous brands which took action to help people lately, including a food delivery app which gave up its delivery fee to encourage people to stay home, or a bill payment app, which has now become free for all users in order to keep people from going out of their homes to pay their bills. 

Now it is more urgent than ever for businesses to bring true value through their Social Media communications. In the long term, considering that the economic crisis will become stronger, it’s important for a brand to share relevant messages considering the actual situation, highlighting the way their products and services bring value in this context, and how they are contributing to improving the quality of the social and economic environment.

Rethink your communications strategy around your target audience

No matter the type of your business, it is possible that channels such as TV, Outdoor, Print or Display Advertising have been part of your omni-channel communications strategy. However, considering the fact that most of the people will spend their time indoors in the next weeks/months, you’ll have to reevaluate the way these channels help you to deliver your message to your target audience. While TV remains a channel that might continue to bring the estimated results, because the media consumption on this channel will increase, especially in big cities, other environments will not have the same results as in the previous months.

Therefore, the immediate reorganisation of the advertising budget for the next 3 months will allow you to deliver your messages more efficient, using the most popular channels these days.

Take note that not only the media consumption is changing these days, but also the lifestyle of your target audience, so the messages that you share should also be shaped to spark people’s interest, besides the change of the communication strategy, which is a must.

Use Digital Marketing to attract new clients

One of the top priorities of every start-up, especially in the B2B context, should be to constantly increase their client database. Traditional methods like networking or cold calling can become inefficient if there are smaller transaction budgets on the market - and will become increasingly difficult for the sales team to convince new customers that investing in the company's services or products is the best solution. The online environment can provide an excellent alternative, especially for businesses in the B2B environment: promoting "Thought Leadership" content, which offers value to their ideal consumers in exchange for their contact details.

Once the data is captured by these Inbound Marketing techniques, the sales team can start the conversation and identify the way potential clients can use the company’s services. This way, the promotion budgets can deliver new business opportunities, and at the same time can increase the start-up’s awareness in the relevant niche.

Considering that public activities are limited, outdoor marketing won’t be efficient anymore - that is why you need to turn your attention to the digital space - by running Social Media campaigns. People will spend most of their time indoors, so the time spent on social platforms will increase considerably, which makes it easier for businesses to get discovered. Try to highlight that people can place their orders online, that they can pay online with their card and that their order will be delivered to their door.

Some payment processors have shown solidarity during this hard times and have announced that they are implementing free online payment for small companies.

Make use of Social Media Marketing to create a community around your brand

In case of an economic crisis, consumers will be more reserved in spending their financial resources, and the businesses that will survive will be the ones which have earned their customer’s trust and have public validation - so their community will facilitate their access to a new public. 

Social Media Marketing is an efficient way that can help start-ups to build and maintain a strong community around the brand at a low cost. It can also help to spread the messages to the target audiences. The most popular Social Media platforms that are used in Social Media Marketing are Facebook, Instagram or LinkedIn - but when choosing which one to run campaigns on, it has to depend on the target audience, its characteristics and the business.

Use automation and Artificial Intelligence to integrate your Marketing & Sales Systems

Increasing the efficiency of internal processes should be one of the top concerns of start-ups in this uncertain economic context - fortunately, Artificial Intelligence and Marketing Automation can help accelerating and optimising marketing and sales activities.

There are multiple Software-as-a-Service solutions which use data analysis algorithms and Cloud Data and can automatically implement sequences designed to drive new potential customers into the purchase process, by delivering advertising or content messages in an automated way, depending on the history of their interactions with the brand. All these technologies can only act based on informations received from a Customer Relationship Management software. An efficient example is the Hubspot CRM & Marketing Suite for B2B businesses, a solution that offers the possibility of registering contacts and partnerships with other businesses and tracking their status. It also provides an automated distribution of content according to the interaction of the respective lead with the business.

Important

In order to increase the chances of an effective advertising campaign that ultimately leads to sales, it is still very important to consider the omni-channel element. Therefore, planning an effective delivery system of the ads is essential to increase their efficiency in this hard times. This is an example of such a system, if the communication channels are TV, Google Search Ads, Google Display Ads and Social Media:

• TV - in order to attract attention to the brand.

• Organic Social Media - constant posts that show the brand's professionalism and activity, when the audience captured by TV is looking for product information (Social Media is the second most popular search engine after Google).

• Social Media Ads (Remarketing) - in order to capture and deliver specific ads to the public that has navigated from Social Media to your website with the purpose of a more thorough research. These campaigns’ main purpose is conversion.

• Google Search Ads - in order to place your website in the top results, when people who have seen your TV ads are searching for products in the category that you are selling.

• Google Display Ads - in order to implement Remarketing campaigns delivered to the audience who browsed your website after a Google search - these campaigns are meant to facilitate conversion.
  
  
  
  

Conclusion

Although the economic landscape is expected to be difficult in the upcoming months, the most important things that will make the difference between a business that will survive - or even grow sustainably - and one that will suffer drastically, will be:

• The number of new customers obtained through promotion (traditional & Guerilla, in case of B2C businesses or Inbound Marketing & Lead Generation in case of B2B businesses), which will be able to balance the number of customers that will inevitably be lost in this crisis situation - this way maintaining positive cash flow in the business.

• The public's perception of the brand and company, and how necessary and relevant they consider it to be in their life (in the B2C context) - or how relevant it would be in the context of their success in a difficult market (in the B2B context).

• The efficiency of the company's efforts to remain visible, to invest the budgets efficiently and to reach the target audience through marketing.

Although marketing budgets are often the ones that suffer when companies review priorities, their effective allocation is actually one of the factors with a huge potential to change the fate of the business you are a part of. At the same time, in an international environment subject to major stress, in which the attention of the public is easy to manipulate and the "attention span" is getting shorter, the risk of NOT doing advertising and being forgotten it is one that should not be assumed, especially when it comes to small and medium-sized businesses.

We wish you good luck and let us all overcome this economic obstacle! If you need our advice in this hard times, leave us a message at hello@marketiu.com - we are happy to help!