Strategic Consulting Agency. Fort Lauderdale Web Design, Branding, Digital Ad Marketing Agency, CRM Software

After the COVID-19 global pandemic is over, businesses will be judged by what actions they took in the time of crisis to help other people.

 

Did they take care of their employees who were suddenly left without a regular income? Did they contribute to the welfare of their customers who were filled with anxiety and uncertainty? Did they give back to their community, especially the first responders, medical professionals, and others on the front lines of the crisis?

 

The actions you as a business owner take now will likely determine whether your business makes it or not after the crisis is over. A national emergency is a test of character for individuals and organizations alike.

 

It also offers you a rare opportunity to step up and do something heroic.

 

Fight for Survival

 

People’s instinctive, natural first response to any type of danger is to hide and wait until it is passed. During this crisis, this may be acceptable and even recommended for individuals, but not for small business owners.

 

Instead, people who own their own businesses find themselves in a fight for survival. Nobody could have anticipated that the coronavirus crisis was going to essentially shut down most non-essential businesses for an extended, undetermined amount of time. Even if you had known, would it have been possible to take steps to do anything to keep your business going? Probably not.

 

Instead, business owners are now charged with finding long-term solutions to what hopefully will be a short-term shut down. Here are a couple of suggestions.

 

Be an Essential Business

 

In California, New York, Illinois, and other places hit hardest by the virus, officials have ordered that any non-essential business be shut down until the crisis has passed. For the owners of these businesses, this likely will be disastrous. Most small business owners don’t have the capital to keep going with little or no income for even a few weeks, let alone an open-ended period that possibly could last months.

 

That’s why it’s important that you get your business declared an essential business by any means necessary. Right now, there is no clear definition and much confusion about what does and does not constitute an essential business. Governments have never had to make these determinations before. And there is no consistency from one jurisdiction to the next.

 

In Pennsylvania, for example, all liquor stores were ordered closed by the state governor. But in Illinois, they remain open. In some states were cannabis has been legalized, dispensaries were ordered closed. But in others, recreational marijuana is considered an essential business.

 

Where there is confusion lies opportunity. Get on the phone with whoever the decision maker is and explain why your business is essential. Call your attorney and ask what suggestions they have. Contact competitors and bond together to save your industry. Find out if similar businesses are remaining open in other states or jurisdictions and use that as justification for keeping yours open.

 

Staying in business even with limited sales and possibly no staff is better than closing your business altogether because you may never be able to reopen.

 

Publicize Your Actions

 

News organizations always have huge news holes to fill. But since the COVID-19 crisis began, there has been a profound lack of good news to report. So news outlets are desperate for something, anything, that is positive.

 

Newspapers, TV station, even national news organizations see it as part of their mission to their viewers and readers hope. They literally need news to balance out all the bad news. So, give it to them.

 

The first step is figuring out what you can do to help your community.:

• Can you afford to keep paying your employees even for a few weeks?
• Do you have supplies you can contribute to medical caregivers such as masks or equipment?
• Can you temporarily retool your production line to accommodate the most urgent needs?
• Can you coordinate volunteers to sew masks or deliver food to people trapped in quarantine?

Do something, anything that will help people. Then tell people about it.

 

Nobody is going to criticize you for helping other people. In fact, it will frame your business as heroic in a time of crisis. Not only will this help your community in the short run, but it will improve your business’s reputation and possibly help you survive in the long run.

 

Pay Attention to Recovery Programs

 

Finally, local, state and federal governments are scrambling to find ways to rescue the economy. This likely will take the form of direct payments to taxpayers, bailouts to big industries like airlines or banks, and low-interest or interest-free loans to small businesses.

 

This type of funding likely will be critical to saving your business. So, it’s imperative that you pay attention to what’s available and be the first in line for what you qualify for.

 

There won’t be a never-ending flow of free money. It almost certainly will be short-lived and on a first-come, first-served basis. So be diligent and take advantage of what is available.

 

For small businesses, the coming weeks and months are going to be a fight for survival. The steps you take now will determine whether or not your business is going to make it.

 

All across America, many businesses are temporarily closed. For small business owners, the challenge today is maintaining their connections with their customers even if they don’t have products or services they can offer currently or in the short-term future.

 

It is imperative that businesses continue to communicate with their customers throughout the COVID-19 crisis. Although nobody knows when life will return to normal, eventually it will. And when it does, you want to make sure people still feel connected to your business.

 

Digital Marketing

 

One benefit of the coronavirus crisis is that many businesses have a captive audience. Most people are stuck at home. And for the time being, at least, they have little else to do but look at their social media, read their emails, and scroll through their text messages.

 

That creates the ideal opportunity for small businesses to remind their customers that they exist. If you are still offering products and services – even if it is in a modified form – tell people about it.

 

Many retail businesses including restaurants and even bars have pivoted to pickup and delivery as a way of keeping their cash flow alive. But people aren’t going to order from you if they don’t know you are open.

 

And if you are temporarily shuttered, it’s still valuable to keep communicating with your customers.

 

Most small businesses need to be communicating with both existing and potential customers on a daily or near-daily basis through Facebook posts, Instagram stories, Twitter Tweets, emails blasts, text strings, and any other digital marketing opportunity that exists.

 

Have Something to Say

 

Before the crisis, you probably used your digital marketing platforms to let customers know about offers and promotions, special pricing, sales items, and other information.

 

For many small businesses today, however, this information is no longer relevant. For the next few weeks, instead you need to come up with something else to say about your business.

 

One of the best things you can do is to let people know what you are doing to contribute to the fight against the virus.

 

• Have you made contributions of supplies or equipment to local hospitals or medical centers?
• Are you continuing to pay your employees?
• Have you volunteered your services to local government or relief efforst?
• Are you volunteering at a local food bank or making cash contributions to the Red Cross or other charities?

 

All of these things will have the dual benefit of creating a point of contact with your customers while simultaneously letting people know that you genuinely care about your community and are engaged with the efforts to help people affected by the crisis.

 

Remaining Actively Engaged

 

Another type of information you can promote through digital marketing is what you are doing while your business is closed. Are you bringing some employees back to do deep cleaning? Are you reorganizing your inventory? Are you drawing up plans for reopening?

 

Let people know what you are doing during the crisis. Parcel the information out so you have something to communicate daily. Look for new opportunities to share news and information that people can use.

 

Try to find ways to remain relevant to both your customers and the community at large so when things do return to normal people will feel as if you never went away.

 

Blog Posts and eBooks

 

If you haven’t already started a blog for your business, now might be a good time to start. Blogs are a fast, easy and affordable way to provide high-value content, something that is especially important to people who are temporarily trapped indoors and don’t have a lot else to do.

 

eBooks are another way to keep your business relevant. They are brief yet informative books containing relevant information about your business or topics related to your industry that can be distributed for free or given away as a way of drawing in new leads. And once they are written, you can use them again and again to build your business’s credibility and boost its reputation.

 

However you do it, it’s important that you keep giving your customers something that reminds them that your business exists. Sooner or later this crisis will end. And when it does, continual communication will help ease the seamless transition from crisis to normalcy.