As COVID-19 is getting spread all around the globe, it has brought a hurricane that affects every business, from small and medium-sized enterprises to multinational corporations.
Even though nobody was prepared for that, businesses try to adapt fast against these series of lockdowns. Like all business sectors and subsectors, digital marketing agencies have their share of the prevailing pandemic outbreak. Despite not being a traditional sector, digital marketing agencies also had to change how they do work as they have clients from various industries.
Under these circumstances, what shows up as an important theme is crisis management. We have gathered the essentials of crisis management for digital marketing agencies amid this pandemic outbreak.
Think Long Term and Invest in SEO
Even though the usual business patterns have come to a halt now, you should stick to the fact that this unfortunate situation is temporary. Right now, it might be urgent to take some short time measures to save the day, and it is vital to think long term. You should not neglect to focus on your long term goals.
One of your long term goals is probably increasing your visibility on the internet, especially by raising your rankings on Google. SEO is critical to turn your traffic into sales. Investing in SEO also contributes to increasing your e-commerce sales, branding and reputation management.
SEO is a highly competitive area of interest among businesses. You should consider that SEO is an inherently long-term process since it requires planning, executing, testing, measuring, performing an SEO audit, and analyzing the results. To stand out from the crowd both during and after the crisis, you should not slacken your work on SEO.
You can think of this slowdown period as an opportunity to review your long term actions. Think about your SEO investment, your budget allocation, your agency’s strengths and weaknesses. Whatever you do now will pay off in the future. You can take advantage from using one of the best SEO monitoring tools.
Check your Competitors’ Activity on Social Media
When everybody is staying inside and working remotely, life seems to be flowing slowly. Yet, you still have your competitors who are trying to analyze the new situation and discover potential opportunities like you. Having an eye on your competitors’ activity is quite useful to consider your strategies.
Social media has already been competitive, yet, it has gained even more influence while daily life is suspended almost everywhere now. Like people, businesses and brands express themselves on social media, too. They are creating content to catch attention and build awareness.
For your digital agency to stay ahead of the competition, you should not neglect checking your competitors’ activities on social media. It will help you notice potential threats and come up with novel strategies.
You already have a sense of which firms you are competing with. So you can turn your focus to them and inspect what they are sharing during these hard times. Pausing your activities on social media for crisis management can be a solution too. It’s all about your industry. You should check your competitors to decide on it too.
Conducting keyword analyses is a common competition analysis strategy for many businesses. Due to the current situation, there might be some changes to the keywords most relevant to your sector. You can use various tools to analyze your competitors’ websites.
Remote Working for Managing the Crisis
If you want to stem the tide of this public health crisis, remote working has been an inevitable consequence of the current business practices. Now many businesses had to turn to remote working, which has its advantages and disadvantages. Here are some tips to make remote working more efficient both for your employees and the business.
The workspace is hugely significant. Even when your team members do not leave their houses for work, they should organize a workspace that should feel like a separate space. Creating a workspace inside will help the employees to switch to a professional mind setting despite being home.
To make its team’s work easier, a digital agency knows which digital facilities to rely on. Beyond a sufficient internet connection, you can pay attention to technological needs such as noise-canceling headphones, wireless keyboards, and mouses, or a second screen to ensure more efficiency.
It is hard to catch the work team spirit when you work remotely; hence communication becomes key. Since the coworkers and managers are not under each other’s reach, it is the team’s responsibility to schedule meetings to talk about the goals, upcoming projects, and daily tasks. You should make use of the remote working tools to ensure communication and collaboration.
Create Timely Content
Being up-to-date is a trait that every business should have. Especially during this hot global agenda, you do not have the chance to overlook the priorities of society. That’s why you need to present timely, useful content. Acting like everything is smooth might irritate people who are concerned about the situation.
Probably you already have had an audience before the coronavirus pandemic. Now that your audience is self-isolating, your followers have more time to check your content closely. Producing valuable content will help you to engage your audience. It will also help you gain more readers since people turned their attention to social media.
It is crucial to understand your audience, engage in forethinking and prepare well to create timely and valuable content. You should read up on the news and current responses frequently. However, be aware of the fact that information pollution comes to the forefront during such crises. It is incredibly significant to avoid them.
Content marketers write with purpose. Do not hesitate to spend time creating content that will help reader engagement. Work hard to create timely content and share positivity. Showing people that you are responding to the needs of the day is one of the best strategies of crisis management for a digital agency.
Risks and Opportunities
The pandemic outbreak is temporary. However, it has not shown its full effects yet. Economic effects might endure to a certain degree. Hence, like all businesses, digital marketing agencies should be aware of possible future risks and opportunities. It is essential to prepare for the near future to feel the blight less.
If the economic effects stay for a longer time, your digital agency should be prepared for possible terms of cost-cutting. That will require inspecting your cost structure more closely. Now that you have time for that before things go wrong, it is better to conduct an analysis. Moreover, if you have tools that are not effectively used, it is better to eliminate them or to change them with more effective ones.
Almost all industries may be affected by the economic impacts of coronavirus. However, the risk is not evenly distributed among sectors and subsectors. While industries like tourism and aviation have more possibilities to go into a decline, the industries that are more prone to have an online organization (such as e-trade, online services) will recover fast.
You should track how various industries and sectors are affected. Since digital marketing is a flexible sector that works with various industries, you can make use of new opportunities even if you lose some clients. For example, the sectors related to health, medicine, and biology seem like they will have a stronger place in tomorrow’s business world. You can keep them under consideration as they might be your future customers.
Connect More With Your Clients
During this pandemic outbreak, everyone is naturally worried about themselves and their loved ones. However, their worries probably are not confined to health issues. People are also concerned about their daily lives and their work habits. Your clients are no exception. You should have strong bonds with your clients to tackle this uncertainty and you should help to their crisis management strategies.
Communicating with your clients more can be helpful to have stronger bonds with them. Even though you have to stay away from them, you do not need to be distant. Everybody needs more communication now. By communicating with your clients more, you can make them feel closer to you.
Coronavirus outbreak is an opportunity to show how much you value your clients. You should demonstrate that you care for them during hard times as well. You should not let your customers doubt about your responsibilities towards them. They need to know what kind of precautions you are taking to tackle the situation with less harm possible.
Your clients might be worrying about their business. You should prove your credibility when it comes to your responsibilities towards your clients. Show them you are still working hard to provide them with valuable services. Your clients will appreciate your effort and reciprocate it once the situation gets better.
Our globe is going through a hard period. But it is essential to keep your motivation up. Everybody needs to do that. Everything will be back to their path, and the businesses that strive hard during this outbreak will prosper in the end.
Hard times require hard work. We shared some tips that are essential to tackle this unexpected situation. If your digital marketing agency establishes a proper plan for crisis management, it can secure its position in the market today and tomorrow.