This year has been one for the books. From a worldwide pandemic to national protests, our digital marketing clients and their businesses have been tested like never before. And yet, they continue to overcome the hurdles placed before them. We’ve been fortunate enough to survive these hard times ourselves and it’s in large part due to our dedicated team, clients, and partners. We can’t thank them enough for their on-going support and encouragement.
As we continue to learn more about COVID-19, we’re starting to see a shift in a variety of industries and sectors. Businesses are starting to see a light at the end of the tunnel (even if it still seems far away). So what does life look like post-pandemic? How do we pick up the pieces and turn the page? Below we’ll explore how to ramp-up your digital marketing to make sure your business is ready when things really do get “back to normal” – whatever that new normal may look like.
Check the Pulse of Your Business
The first step is to take a breath and take the pulse of your business as it stands now. What are your biggest challenges? What are your biggest opportunities? How has the last 6 months affected your operations? These are just a few of the important questions you should ask to better understand the status of where things are at and where you should be focusing your energy.
Before you even think about your digital marketing, you need to make sure your business is ready to ramp back up to pre-pandemic levels. After all, there is a reason people are scared and uncertain. Make sure everyone is on the same page by communicating with your team and reassuring them that you have a plan in place (and if you don’t have a plan, make one). The next few sections below will help guide you in the right direction.
Read the Economic Landscape
The next step is to read the economic landscape. Hit up your favorite news outlets and start reading the tea leaves. What does the unemployment rate look like? What is the stock market doing? These indicators will help you determine when it’s time to ramp-up your digital marketing and when to hold serve.
It’s easy to start guessing when things will turn around but that’s a risky approach. There are plenty of economic indicators that you can utilize to help you gauge how things are evolving or devolving – depending upon the numbers.
Evaluate Your Competitors
Take a hard look at your competition and see what they’re doing right now. Are they hunkering down? Are they coming up for air? Or are they taking advantage of this opportunity and already ahead of the game?
When evaluating your competitors, depending upon your industry, we recommend looking at their website, social media, press releases, and any other public information that might tip their hand. It’s important to understand your competitive landscape, especially in times like these. Most people are scared but it’s those who face the reality of the situation that are able to think clearly, be level-headed, and take advantage of this opportunity.
The Digital Marketing Landscape
What about the digital marketing landscape? Just because COVID-19 hit doesn’t mean that technology stopped innovating. In fact, we’d argue that especially in digital marketing, technology has increased its speedy evolution with the amount of people using the internet.
By now you’ve likely heard of the video conferencing software Zoom. It’s been around for a while but this pandemic helped this technology company explode overnight (and then shortly thereafter implode based on security issues – but that’s another story).
The point is that you need to understand the “new” digital marketing landscape because it has changed and it’s constantly changing, faster than ever. Look into new technologies, methods, and processes. See how you can leverage technology to get an edge on your competition.
For example, how are your new and existing customers engaging with your business? How is that engagement changing? Are there opportunities to increase engagement, customer satisfaction, and conversion rates? Answers to these questions will open the floodgates if you can leverage them the right way.
Gauge Your Goals
A lot has changed in recent weeks and months. It only makes sense that your goals may have shifted as well. Before you dive into ramping things back up, you’ll need to re-evaluate your goals so you can determine what digital marketing activities you’ll need to utilize.
A few questions to help you determine if your goals have changed:
Restart Your Campaigns
Alright, now that you have a strong understanding of your business pulse, the economic outlook, competition, digital marketing landscape, and your goals – it’s time to dig in and figure out how to ramp-up your digital marketing efforts.
The first place to start is to look at what was working before things started going haywire (aka the pandemic). Pull up all of the old campaigns that you put on pause. Are they still relevant? Do they still meet your goals? If so, this part is easy. Restart them. Even just a few weeks of data in this “new world” will give you enough information to determine if they need to continue running, be tweaked, or sadly, if they need to be scrapped completely.
Leverage Your Tactics
There are two primary ways that you can leverage your digital marketing tactics. You can either retain your customers or attract new customers. While you can certainly utilize tactics for other purposes (ie. internal company communications, etc), we’ll focus on these two topics for the purposes of ramping up your digital marketing.
1. Retain Your Customers
If you’re looking to retain your customers, there are a few specific tactics that you can implement which will help you turn customers into brand advocates. Remember, everyone is uncertain right now so reassuring your customers in new and engaging ways will go a long way towards building trust and confidence.
2. Attract New Customers
Ready to grow your business? Then it’s time to look at attracting new customers with tactics that specifically convert visitors into leads and ultimately, into paying customers. Below we’ve outlined a few digital marketing tactics that will help you target potential customers.
Prioritize Your Digital Marketing Activities
After laying out your digital marketing tactics, it’s time to start prioritizing your activities so you can build the foundation for your ramp-up plan. Not every marketing tactic has equal importance, especially in light of the current landscape.
We recommend writing down a complete list of marketing tactics that you are thinking about implementing. After you’ve created your list, start scoring them using the method below. Each tactic should get scored 1-10 (ten is highest) and then multiplied by the point factor for each category. Then you add up the total and order by the total score from highest to lowest.
Example Scoring Guide:
Build Your Ramp-Up Plan
Now it’s time to put everything together. From your research to your marketing tactics, you’ll want to put together a rock-solid plan that will help you achieve your ramp-up marketing goals. Below we’ll help you assemble everything into a succinct digital marketing ramp-up plan.
Purpose
First, you’ll need to understand the purpose of your ramp-up digital marketing efforts. Are you attempting to attract new customers, needing to retain current customers, or trying to accomplish something else? Write down your primary purpose so you can base your plan off this statement.
Tactics
Second, you’ll want to outline the digital marketing tactics that you plan to implement.
Budget
Third, you’ll want to dive into your budget. Since your budget may be trimmed down, you’ll want to squeeze every dollar you spend to make sure your return on investment is as high as possible. We recommend writing down both your monthly and annual budget so you can break down projects vs. monthly projects.
Timeline
Last, you’ll need to evaluate your timeline and consider any important upcoming milestones. Are there any specific goals or timeframes that you need to meet? Do you need to stagger your projects or run them concurrently? Looking at the economic climate, does it make sense to tackle some tactics before others? We recommend creating a linear timeline for your ramp-up plan so you can visually see the upcoming weeks and months.
Navigating these tricky economic times can be tough but with the right digital marketing ramp-up plan, you have the ability to position your business in a place where you can leverage your tactics and accomplish your goals.
Here at Sproutbox Media, we’re already seeing some of our clients becoming increasingly aggressive in their marketing so that when things settle down, they’ll be in a great place to take advantage of the situation. Will you be ready?
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