Should My Company Continue Marketing Through the Coronavirus Crisis?

Businesses should switch their efforts towards an inbound marketing/communications strategy and manage relationships with existing customers during the pandemic.

• By Julian Arcila
• May 12, 2020

As the coronavirus (COVID-19) continues its grip on the United States and other countries around the world, I want to share some thoughts on the importance of maintaining your company’s communications to customers at a high level during this challenging time in the world.

The coronavirus is impacting our daily way of life throughout the globe. Our typical day has drastically changed at work as we limit our physical contact with business associates and customers. Currently, many of our usual ways of communicating with our customers are not available. Worldwide air travel is not recommended, global trade shows have ceased everywhere, and customers are asking salespeople to postpone sales calls.

Everyone doing business is staying close to home, with many companies now having their employees working from home and staying in touch with customers electronically. We are practicing “social distancing,” which is a good thing. We endorse all the ways the experts and society have recommended we limit our interactions with each other every day until this significant health challenge is reduced or departs.

How Inbound Marketing Helps Businesses Today?

In light of all our typical day to day personal engagements with people being set aside during the coronavirus pandemic, we would like to suggest you switch your efforts towards using inbound marketing/communications. Under the current business environment, it makes more sense than ever to maintain relationships with your customers to ensure they know about your company’s latest products and services. Your customers are still looking to engage your company through the digital world. In response to meeting the needs of your customers, allow me a few moments to remind you of the benefits of inbound marketing and the power it delivers under the current business conditions we are all experiencing.

Under these critical world conditions, the internet is empowering customers more than ever to be aggressive in gathering information about a company’s products and services. Our current world doesn’t allow personal meetings between people at this time, so customers are moving forward using the internet to identify products and services that best solve their business challenges. Inbound marketing is a customer-focused marketing approach that brings customers to your products and services through timely, strategic delivery of online content marketing, social media marketing, search engine optimization (SEO), and smart branding positioning.

Why is Inbound Marketing an Effective Marketing Strategy?

As today’s businesses continue to work under the threat of the coronavirus, customers know that company web sites, social media, and blogs provide pathways to attaining information and data about a company’s products and services. Customers are doing internet research to find answers to solve their business problems. Securing this information builds their base of understanding about the products and services they wish to purchase. Customers will make a buy decision based on what they learn from your inbound marketing communications.

You can use inbound marketing to position your company to attract, convert, and even delight the customers with your brand. Inbound marketing is an active ongoing strategy for educating your customers regarding your industry expertise and your ability to resolve their business challenges. Your online content must always be fresh and engaging. The content should be there for them to access at their convenience and when they are actively searching for products and services to help them.

What Are the Elements of a Solid Strategic Inbound Marketing Program?

Identify Your Target Audience

Take the time to construct your upfront strategy and communications plan, so you identify your key prospects that allow alignment of your communications with the targeted audiences you wish to reach with your messages. Identifying your audience is a significant first step that you need to take by interviewing your internal folks that communicate regularly with customers to ensure your producing communications that address their business requirements and buying habits. The critical point here is for you to produce relevant and exciting content for the targeted audiences coming to your company’s web site for information about your brand.

Produce Fresh and Relevant Content

Develop content for your company internet that engages your customers and creates a relationship with them. Daily content needs to inform, educate, and even entertain your audience as they research your company to help them solve their business problems. The content should meet the needs of the buyer personas you have identified and help them move along the buyer’s journey to connect with your brand. Don’t forget to maximize industry search engine optimization to ensure your company’s information appears at the top of web inquiries received from your customers.

Program Management

A comprehensive inbound marketing strategy integrates the multiple communications elements of your plan to build on each other to produce consistent and relevant information. As you identify your customer’s requirements, continue to monitor their needs as your relationship evolves so that your communications are responding in step with their changing requirements. Customers will provide you with the roadmap for your interactions – follow the path that they suggest for you. Commit to posting communications that resonate with them, and you will be on the way for success.

Produce Your Communications with Energy

Producing intranet content that is relevant to your customers is not easy. It takes a dedicated strategic plan to make it work successfully for your company and increase awareness of your brand. The objective is to give your customers a quality experience with your company. Providing relevant information that responds to your customer’s needs and answers their questions about the business challenges they are trying to solve.

Your company will be well-served by attacking this step with energy and a focused plan. Take the time to understand your customer’s requirements and put the resources in place to manage the customer information you receive to produce relevant, quality communications your customers will relish.

Final Thought

Our world is in the grip of a global pandemic that is impacting our everyday way of life. Many changes have already occurred in the business landscape, and we may see further repercussions due to the impact of the coronavirus. Due to this changing landscape for how people are doing business today, inbound marketing offers your company the opportunity to stay in constant contact with your customers using consistent, relevant information that helps them successfully manage their businesses.

These are challenging times for global businesses, and maintaining communications with your customers during this critical time is essential. But even more important, while the world battles the coronavirus, is for us to focus on our family and the people we love. Be healthy, be safe, and be kind. We can all use some kindness right now while we battle the virus, and I’m confident we will come out safely on the other side. Take care, and we’ll talk again with you soon.

This article was originally posted by Signalis Group.