Using Your Website to Navigate the Challenges of COVID-19

Did your 2020 marketing plan include a provision for global pandemic? Ours didn’t! For many of us, we started 2020 planning for growth and innovation. We did not anticipate a global pandemic ripping through our communities and the economy the way it has. It has left many businesses struggling to find ways to move forward in what many are perceiving as a “New Normal”. While these times may be challenging, there are ways to use your website and marketing strategy to navigate the current crisis. We have outlined a few ways your business can adjust your website strategy to confront COVID-19 head-on.

Define Your Crisis Communication Voice

Be Honest

The world looks different today than it did a few months ago. Be honest with your customers and clients about how these times have changed and how they have affected your business. More importantly, be empathetic to how your customers’ lives have changed because of the current climate.

Strike a Warm Tone

When crisis strikes, people are looking for comfort wherever they can find it. Craft a tone of voice online that comforts and reassures your visitors. In the end, your business exists to provide a service or product that makes your customers’ lives better. How can you help right now, even if that has changed drastically from 3 months ago?

Find Your New Value Proposition

You need to understand how your business fits into a “New Normal”. The reality is that your customers’ and clients’ needs have changed. These changes may be minor, or they may be fairly drastic (see our note below about your Buyer Personas). Your business needs to understand these changes and your website needs to communicate a clear message about how you can help. Below are a few generic ways on how you may be able to help:

• Comfort – Can you provide comfort to your clients and customers? This is particularly true if you are a restaurant or entertainment source and can provide delivery or socially distanced version of your service.
• Advice – For professional services (lawyers, financial and wealth advisors, credit unions and banking, etc.), your customers might be looking for advice and support. Lean on your expertise and provide sound advice to get your clients though these difficult times.
• Humor – We are all in the need of a good laugh right now. Don’t be afraid to lead with a little lighthearted humor. It can’t be doom and gloom the entire time…right?

Need Help Navigating COVID-19?

Determining the best way to pivot your marketing strategy in the wake of COVID-19 can be challenging and stressful. Our team of experts have helped multiple clients plan and execute an online strategy designed to engage clients, generate goodwill, and help businesses weather the storm. See how Quantum Dynamix can help your business.

Contact QD for a Free Consultation

Redefine Your Buyer Personas

Understand Evolving Needs

As we alluded to above, there is a great likelihood that your target audience’s have changed. According to recent polling from NPR, 50% Of Americans have been financially affected by COVID-19. And even for those who haven’t, their confidence clearly has been. Now is the time to reevaluate your Buyer Personas. How have they changed currently? Are their emotional needs different? Has their financial situation changed? Are these changes temporary? And most importantly, how can you pivot your business to meet the needs of your customers and rise to the occasion?

Be an Innovator

As has been well reported, the 2008 Great Recession was the incubator for innovations such as Uber, AirBNB, and Slack. These brands are well integrated into our lives today, but during their founding, these businesses were disrupters to the “Old Normal” of how business was done. They reshaped the transportation, travel, and communication industries respectively. Now is the time to find inspired ways to use your business and your talents to innovate the industry, or at least provide a new service or product that will help your customers. Use your website as a way to help position, promote, and ultimately sell these products and services.

Communicate Now…Communicate Often

Don’t Go Dark

Your business might be closed right now or running at a limited capacity. Even so, now is NOT the time to go dark from a marketing or communication standpoint. Let your customers know you are still there, still listening, and still planning for the future. Or even better, find ways to conduct business online or by using appropriate safety protocols.

Find Your Platform

There are many platforms that you can use to communicate with your customers and clients. Speed is important. Social media and email marketing are great ways to remain in contact. Find the right platform (or multiple platforms), craft your Crisis Voice, and begin to write.

Don’t be Tone Deaf

Simply put, your old marketing message is probably out of date, regardless of when you wrote it. Review your marketing and website strategy carefully. Is your website messaging appropriate right now? Be prepared to pivot to strike a tone that is warm, inviting, comforting, and most importantly, appropriate.

Activate Your Advocates

You built a business for a reason. Because you are good (most likely great) at what you do. And because of that, you have built an army of advocates that support your business loyally. It is time to activate these advocates! Be honest with them and explain that you need their support. Even better, get them to help promote your business to their networks. Use your most loyal customers and clients as a part of your marketing machine moving forward to help your business navigate the storm.

Need Help Navigating COVID-19?

Determining the best way to pivot your marketing strategy in the wake of COVID-19 can be challenging and stressful. Our team of experts have helped multiple clients plan and execute an online strategy designed to engage clients, generate goodwill, and help businesses weather the storm. See how Quantum Dynamix can help your business.

Contact QD for a Free Consultation

Use Your Website to Communicate Confidence and Compassion

These may be difficult times for everyone, and the reality is, to paraphrase Winston Churchill, that this is most likely the end of the beginning, not the beginning of the end. Now is the time to communicate strength, confidence, and reassurance to the customers and clients that have supported your business through the years. Now is the time lead by example, strive for innovation, and to find a way to make this “New Normal” stronger than the “Old Normal.”