Though it’s hard to predict when, we can be sure that current social distancing measures will end at some point. Businesses will reopen, people will go back to eating in restaurants, attending sporting events, and enjoying the touch and company of other people.
Businesses will look to put the pandemic behind them and resume activity.
When this happens, how will your business react? Will you be ready to deal with the influx of work or be scrambling to get all the pieces back together?
In this blog you’ll learn four ways to ensure your business is ready for when people start returning to work and the economy picks up again.
Solicit Feedback from Clients, Partners, and Vendors
The return to work is a great time to ask your clients whether they found your business actions and communications helpful during this time. Asking for feedback has two benefits.
First, it gives you clear insight on whether your business strategy during the pandemic was correct. If clients approved of the way you navigated through the crisis, it’s good to know that a similar strategy can be implemented in other times of hardship. Likewise, if clients thought you made errors, knowing this in advance helps you craft your strategy for the next major event.
Secondly, it makes your businesses top of mind. It’s an unfortunate quirk of human nature that we forget the good things and remember the bad far longer than we’d prefer. Perhaps your business did an excellent job supporting clients, partners, and vendors. Though they surely appreciated it in the moment, the many challenges and obstacles businesses are facing will likely relegate your good deeds to a footnote.
Asking for their feedback provides the opportunity for them to thoughtfully reflect on the role you played in helping them manage the pandemic. Instead of being an afterthought, you transform your business to being a key memory. This not only keeps you top of mind, but reminds clients of the value you provide during both good and bad times.
Move Your Sales and Marketing Online
You might’ve found it simply impossible to generate leads during the pandemic. Many businesses rely on in-person events to promote their services. Panels, trade shows, and networking events have all been cancelled and will remain so for the foreseeable future.
If you haven’t already, now is the time to transition to digital marketing for lead generation and sales. Online is the only way people can get together right now and companies that have already embraced digital marketing are finding tremendous success by hosting webinars and other online events.
By diversifying your lead generation strategy you make you businesses antifragile. When an unexpected event happens and causes businesses to lose access to potential customers, your businesses will thrive because of your diversified marketing and sales strategy.
Some content you can start producing right now includes:
- Blogs
- Videos
- Webinars
These pieces of content generate leads for your sales team. Using a marketing automation tool like HubSpot allows you to automate the nitty gritty of the marketing and sales process and allows your team to do what they do best, promote your businesses and closesales.
Your business will not be the only one trying to attract an audience. Reach out to businesses in your general area of expertise that provide services complementary to yours and form partnerships. Offer to write blogs for their website to get your name in front of a new audience. This is a great way to boost your leads when businesses start re-opening.
Prepare Content Unrelated to Covid-19
If you’re anything like us, you may be sick of seeing Covid-19 or one of its many eloquent variations crammed into every paragraph of content. It’s an unfortunate necessity. There’s not much else to talk about and talking about much else—depending on your industry—comes across as insensitive.
A day will come where the mention of Covid-19 is no longer required. When that day gloriously arrives, you best have content ready to publish that makes no mention of the pandemic.
One way to think of content that your audience will be interested in at that time is to consider what new pain points clients will be experiencing as business returns to normal. Think about the challenges you expect to face and have candid conversations with your clients, partners, and vendors about what they anticipate to happen.
Create a rough content schedule and draft the first few pieces of content ahead of time, tweaking the message as the picture becomes more clear. When you feel the time has come to transition away from Covid talk and return to semi-regularly scheduled programming, start publishing.
Prepare for Next Time
Predictions are hard, especially ones about the future. We don’t know when the next major work disrupting event will happen or what it will look like. All we know is that one will happen again, and businesses will once again be forced to take drastic measures to ensure the safety of their business and employees.
Ask your employees how they thought you handled the situation. If communication was clear and the process made sense. Save the documents and protocols you created during the pandemic. Take note of what worked and what processes can be improved upon.
Key Takeaways
Where your business will be after Covid-19 has a lot to do with the steps taken during the pandemic. If you’ve read our series of blogs on how to use your business to help your community, you’ll find that your business never left the minds of your community. They will be thinking about you and looking to do business with you in the coming months.
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