The Covid-19 pandemic has impacted businesses across all industries and, with many brands struggling from the effects of the virus, marketing strategies have been changed drastically – or even pulled entirely. Time will tell how these changes will affect a Company’s revenue and creditworthiness, you can use Company Check for free to stay ahead of the game by adding competitors and prospects alike to your dashboard to keep an eye on them, you can activate watch alerts for free to be notified of company changes, and if you need more detail you can take advantage of our cardless free trial.

But what about your own marketing efforts? Brands have paused their marketing activity, looking for a short-term solution – but are they doing more harm than good in the long-term? Friends of Company Check, Cornwall-based marketing agency, Peaky Digital, explain why it’s vital to keep your marketing running during the next few months and how your brand can adapt its strategy in the face of uncertainty:

Don’t Lose The Momentum You’ve Built

Marketing is a vital ingredient to every brand’s success and activity online can take months – even years – to build. Some channels, like SEO, need constant work to maintain and grow. If you abandon your marketing efforts for a few months, you could see a huge drop in rankings and progress that will be even harder to recover down the line. It’s important to keep your eye on the long-term growth of your brand and future proof your business for online success by continuing with your digital marketing strategy.

Rise To The Top Of The Competitive Landscape

With many brands pulling their marketing, some industry landscapes have suddenly become a lot less competitive. Take advantage of the absence of your competitors and put yourself in a position where you’re on top of the market by the time they return. Now’s the time to review things like your cost-per-clicks of search campaigns – some industries have seen a drop as competitors withdraw, making it even cheaper to bid on your key products and services.

Dial-Down Instead Of Pulling The Plug

If cash is restricted for your brand at the moment then consider whether you can dial back or adapt some activity instead of turning it off completely. You may want to turn off search campaigns that aren’t performing well and upweight budget to a select few. Or why not experiment switching your search strategy to remarketing-only campaigns, which have a typically lower cost-per-click. You may find that the answer for you is to reduce the hours you put into your SEO campaign, maintaining essential-only activity for a few months. Whatever your strategy, make sure that you’re still implementing some form of marketing to generate traffic and prevent a drop in visibility.

Pivot To Other Channels

Can you pivot your focus to one of your best-performing channels? Can you chase existing customers, which are traditionally cheaper than acquiring new customers, by reaching out with an email marketing campaign? Or move your paid Social Media activity to the organic platform, providing relevant content that will keep your existing audience engaged? Use Analytics to find the channels that are performing well and decide how your brand can adapt to this.

Grow Your Audience Pool

Your audience are spending more time online, even if they’re not quite ready to purchase at the moment. Use this time to create remarketing audiences and watch them populate – once the market picks back up again you’ll have a huge pool of warm leads to target!

Your Customers Need Reassurance More Than Ever

Whilst now may not be the time for the hard-sell, making useful and relevant content for your audience will be viewed positively by your followers. Spend some time creating educational pieces, such as top tips, how-to guides and more, that will engage your followers and then distribute it on your channels such as Social Media and email. Make sure that you’re using your marketing channels to communicate business updates and reassuring your customers they’re still important to you.