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Marketing ideas for small businesses during the COVID-19 pandemic

You may think that marketing would plummet as attention is being focused on the greater economic crisis, but we believe that small business marketing is probably more essential now than ever before!

This article highlights the importance of keeping your marketing strategy ticking along, as well as some simple marketing ideas for small businesses to implement during these uncertain times.

Social media marketing

People are on social media at all-time high levels. Whether it’s for a short break whilst working from home or wanting to connect with friends and family during these tough times, the amount of active accounts on social media platforms has skyrocketed since the UK was put into lockdown.

For small businesses, this could be an excellent way of putting yourself in front of an audience that’s willing to invest more time into your content. Whether you post once a week, or once a day, keeping active and consistent will help ensure all the hard work you put into your business before the pandemic is not forgotten.

Social media posts to consider:

Post real-time updates – Keep your audience up-to-date on how you plan to operate during these times, the measures you have put into place or when you are planning on reopening.
Provide comic relief – We’re all scrolling through social media daily and many of us are looking for a break from the serious, information-heavy posts about the severity of the COVID-19 virus. You could really brighten someone’s day with a light-hearted entertaining post and ensure your business isn’t lost in the feeds.
Build relationships – Social media is about creating connections and building relationships. How can you connect more with your fan base or interact with businesses that are in the same situation as you?

Why don’t you keep up to date with what the CW Marketing team are up to on Facebook? Follow our page here >>

Email campaigns

If email marketing does not currently form a part of your small business marketing strategy, now may be the best time to start. Assuming that you have already established a secure database, email marketing is relatively low-cost and has the chance to provide high-returns that will keep your communication lines open.

COVID-19 updates are indeed very important, but they should not be the only focus of your content and messages over the next couple of weeks.

Email campaign ideas to consider:

Newsletters – These are often a relaxed, casual way of letting your customers know what you’ve been up to in the past month. You can feature good news stories, general business updates and links to your social media platforms.
Offer your help – Depending on the nature of your business, you might be able to offer your help and guidance to support the current climate. Can you offer an NHS discount? Are you running a fundraising campaign? If you can provide any support to your audience, you’ll want to communicate this with them.
Business as usual emails – If your business can safely operate during the coronavirus period, you’ll be able to send your usual email campaigns. However, be extra cautious and mindful with the language you use as you’ll need to communicate sympathetically to the current circumstances.

Search engine optimisation (SEO) Marketing

SEO might be more important now than ever before due to the drastic increase in internet users. SEO is about gaining trust from the search engines, and the best way to achieve this is slowly, over time, by outputting quality content, which your users will find valuable and wish to share or link back to.

Since significant gains from SEO don’t typically happen until a few months down the line, there is plenty you can be doing now that will bear fruit in when circumstances somewhat return to normal.

SEO tasks you can do now:

Write articles – If you’ve found yourself with a little extra time on your hands, you might finally get round to writing some keyword-rich articles for your website. Article topics will vary from business to business but can be anything from product reviews, tips and tricks, or the latest industry trends. Allow yourself to get creative, but remember to keep your target keywords and desired outcomes in mind.
Citations – Submitting your website to various (credible) online directories and forums can help increase your domain authority. The more that Google sees your website as a reliable, up-to-date source, the higher your rankings will be. If you want some help getting started, read our guide to link building.
Website optimisations – Is your website content a little outdated, or are there places where you could add more images, calls to action or internal links? Spending time on small optimisations like these will help your rankings increase over time.