Marketing During Difficult Times
Whether you planned for it, or not, we’re all in the same boat being locked down in our homes. For many small business owners, this may be a stressful and trying time - one that may make or break your business.
KIA KAHA.
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Studio Seventyfour can provide eligible businesses with 50% OFF your marketing, through the Regional Business Partnership Network’s (RBP) Capability Fund.
In the past, the hardest-hit industries in New Zealand by Covid-19 were hospitality, retail and wholesale trade, construction, non-food manufacturing, transport, postal and warehousing. These all saw significant job losses between March 2020 and March 2021.
Despite the immediate and potential ongoing negative effects resulting from New Zealand’s lockdown response, opportunities still present themselves to business owners hoping to pivot/adjust their practice in order to positively enhance their overall business performance.
When we are confronted by a crisis, it’s important to know that we need to do everything we can to change the dial to a positive outcome. This blog is for you if you’re looking to actively take advantage of hidden opportunities, and dive into the rabbit hole.
What’s changed since the pandemic?
During a crisis, consumers change their spending habits to adjust for the uncertainty that is created. Forbes states that in the United States, 78% of consumers switched stores, brands, or the way they shop due to the pandemic. To better understand New Zealand’s consumer reaction, it’s best to look back at what happened during Covid-19 in 2020.
PWC conducted two surveys last year; one during ‘peak comfort’ (days 95 - 102 without community transmission) and the other during ‘renewed concern’ (a week and a half into lockdown 2.0). The surveys were conducted to bring to light the differences between consumer behaviour during the different periods - one of stability versus returning to another Covid-19 lockdown.
The core findings are below:
People were more concerned about being in close proximity to others with renewed concern, compared to the peak comfort period.
38% of those surveyed believed that the future expected use of technologies and digital services was strong.
Contact fear appears to increase and coincide with the lockdown (afraid to be around people they don’t know).
58% of people reported spending more time online over lockdown, with only 5% stating that they spent less time online.
26% of people joined up to digital subscriptions, with 64% planning to continue those subscriptions.
Digital behaviours included trying new brands and products, and online supermarket and food shopping.
55% of people have experienced a financial impact that was detrimental. With 15% experiencing extreme negative impact.
55% of people adopted a financially conservative approach moving forward.
Based on this report, we can see that in general people spend more time online, they’re willing to try new brands and products, and they are generally more financially conservative - meaning they will buy products that truly resonate with them.
There is a strong opportunity for your small businesses to market to this growing online audience and position yourself in a way that increases your brand awareness, website traffic, and sales. For more information on developing your brand positioning and USP, click here.
Moving Deeper Online: It’s more than just a post
If you feel like your digital platforms (i.e. your website, Facebook page, or Instagram page) are liabilities that aren’t working for you - you may not be doing it right. These platforms perform greater than your best sales team when optimised. Not only that, but they perform for you Monday to Sunday, around the clock. Hopefully, you already have a website that’s up-to-date and a Facebook page with at least a few posts each month. If you don’t, we highly recommend you get this established right away. If you’re unsure about how to use certain website platforms or the basics of social media - we recommend that you sign-up to Digital Boost and review some of the related workshops/talks there. They provide a high-level overview that explains certain digital-related topics and educate you on the core benefits of positioning your brand online.
So, you have your core digital platforms established and you’re posting - but where are the results?
The short answer: It depends on what you’re doing, the industry you’re operating within, whether you’re selling a product or service, your current social media following, and how active you are. But there are some core principles that act as great guidelines no matter who you are.
1. Contextual content is king
How many times have you posted content, only for it to fall on deaf ears?
That may be due to your content lacking context and relatability to your following. Remember, you may spend a long time creating the content you post - but your followers likely spend less than 3-seconds on your post while they scroll their newsfeed. Relatability stops them from scrolling. Contextual content is content that is visually appealing and relates to your followers. This is the golden star when it comes to social media marketing. With every business posting content across the platform, quality content is what differentiates success in the space.
How do you determine what good contextual content is?
First, think about your customers - what are their wants, needs, and desires? What are their problems - don’t limit this to solely what your business solves. For example, someone who wants to decorate their home also wants to please others and entertain in their home - they may find more reliability in content around cleaning and maintaining a busy home, rather than solely interior decorating.
The golden rule: test, test, test. You won’t know the results until you try; and with organic content being free to produce, there’s no reason not to explore different styles and ideas. We recommend keeping track of the content you’ve posted and its engagement through Facebook analytics (or any other platform’s analytics). Use this as a foundation to build upon.
2. Ditch the Boost
Boosted posts aren’t the be all end all when it comes to paid promotion. That’s not to say they don’t have their place - for example, raising greater awareness to specific business information, or promoting your giveaway further. You can also target your followers and their friends, or specific demographics here - so it is useful under the right circumstances.
However, pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns are a gold mine when done right. The general rule of thumb is that paid advertising should return double what you spend towards it. How do you find the right thing to promote?
- Have you had a recent product launch that could do with a larger reach?
- Do you have products that are hot right now?
- Do you have additional stock that you want to reduce?
- Are you looking to build brand trust and relevancy?
- Do you want to build page likes?
If you answered ’yes’ to any of the above questions, it may be worthwhile to dive deeper into PPC advertising.
3. Keep active and engaged with your followers
Social media provides businesses and users with the means to talk to each other, something that traditional marketing methods don’t have. Therefore, it’s important to utilise this function.
For every comment that you receive on your organic posts, you should aim to engage with them on a personal level to form a relationship. The more positive engagements people have with your brand, the more likely they are to remember you.
4. Look into your website’s analytics
If you don’t know whether it’s your social media platforms, or your website that’s the issue - look at your website’s analytics. Here, you’ll be able to see your website’s traffic sources (social, paid search, organic search, direct, etc.). If you have significant social traffic, but are lacking conversions - there may be an issue with your website’s sales funnel. If you don’t have a lot of traffic from social media, then perhaps you need to look into developing an organic or paid strategy with contextual content to your target audience.
Utilise the free tools available online
As well as Digital Boost, there are a variety of other tools and methods to improve your digital strategy. For example, we provide people with a no-obligation free marketing consultation. This session is a great way for small and medium businesses to better understand the marketing landscape before them. If you’re interested in a 15-30 minute Zoom chat or phone call, email us here and we’ll be in touch.
So whether you’re a small to medium business that specialises in e-commerce or services, we hope you found this guide useful to navigate the current business landscape. To be notified on the next blog, sign-up for our newsletter below.