Marketing your business during COVID-19 and beyond (Part 3/3)
Welcome to our 3 part marketing guide, supporting SMEs with their marketing activity during and beyond COVID-19.
In this article (part 3) we’ll be looking at –
- Understanding and researching your competitors to stay ahead of the game
- Identifying opportunities to increase your local visibility i.e. taking part in community competitions
- New Instagram and Facebook features to support local small businesses
- Why checking in with your network is important
- FREE marketing training courses and tools during COVID-19 to improve your marketing efforts
Review your competitors
In order to establish a competitive advantage, you need to know who you’re up against. New players enter the market all the time, so use this opportunity to refresh your competitor research.
We’re not saying you should copy everything your competitors are doing but it may help to generate some ideas. Look at their Marketing activity, are they doing something you should be doing and more importantly can you do it better?
A few of the key things you may want to investigate are:
- Who are your direct competitors in terms of product or services?
- How do they position their products or services, what language do they use?
- How are they using social media – types of media, visuals, topics
- How have they branded themselves?
- Who are they working with?
- What are their routes to market?
- What’s their marketing approach and what can you learn from the publicly available stats like social engagement?
- Have they made important changes during the current pandemic?
Run or take part in a competition to gain exposure
If you’re open and delivering why not run a competition and give away prizes. This might be a money off voucher or a gift that they will appreciate. It will also provide you with some great exposure.
Could you offer a prize for competitions being run by others? If you see a competition reach out to the organisation and see if you can get involved. It will be great exposure for you. There are lots of community organisations and groups doing just that!
The chances are you’ll feature on their website, social media posts and other marketing channels, it’s also great to give back to your local community.
New features from Instagram & Facebook
Get your small business ‘out there’
Facebook and Instagram are providing new features that will allow other users to discover and support small businesses in their area.
Both these social media platforms are also introducing new tools to help businesses stay informed and connected with their customers.
#supportsmallbusiness
The #supportsmallbusiness hashtag is being used by many to help promote small businesses they care about.
Instagram are introducing the ‘Support Small Business’ sticker. When people use the sticker in Instagram Stories, their story will automatically appear in a shared Instagram story, so more people can discover small businesses.
Instagram outline how this works…
“With the new “Support small business” sticker on Instagram, people can easily show their love for businesses in Stories. They can mention businesses directly in the sticker to give their followers a preview of the account. When people use the sticker, their story will be added to a shared Instagram story, so their followers can see it along with other businesses that people they follow are supporting.”
Using the #SupportSmallBusiness hashtag in Facebook ensures any posts using the sticker will be added to a shared Instagram story highlighting similar posts from all the accounts you follow. Creators on Facebook will also be able to tag a post as being “in support of” a specific small business.
Facebook COVID-19 Business Resources
Facebook have also introduced new tools and resources which helps businesses to stay connected with their customers including best practices.
Make sure your customers know you are open for businesses and any changes you have made to your services.
Access the Business Resources feature.
Check in with your network
Set some time aside to check in with your network online and offline to keep your name and business ‘out there’.
They might be existing customers, prospects or people you have met networking.
Send an email, pick up the phone or post regularly on social media. Read my guest post on this topic written by Business Advisor, Mark Harris – ‘Communicate, communicate, communicate’.
Re-train and up-skill
If you have some free time on your hands it could be an opportunity to re-train and up-skill to deliver an even better service than before! If Marketing your business is a challenge for you, you might want to read our blog post ‘FREE Marketing resources, tools and courses during COVID-19′.
Get in touch
If you need help with any of the tasks listed above or would just like to discuss the right Marketing methods for your business, please get in touch.
