With the media full of doom regarding the Coronavirus and Stock Market crashes, you’d be forgiven for thinking business was closed for the foreseeable future, and that consumers would be holed up in bunkers waiting for the end of the world! But life will go on, slightly altered with a more cautious public, but still looking for goods and services as before. So it seems almost blasphemous to say that right now is a good time to be more visible in your market.
In a crisis, how we respond in the early days will define how well we come through, and people’s natural instincts are sometimes the opposite of a healthy response. Right now your competitors will be thinking of circling the wagons and protecting what they have which makes it the ideal time to take market share. This may sound mercenary, but there are a few reasons why this makes perfect sense.
- There will always be customers looking for goods and services even in the most bear markets. With fewer competitors out looking for them, there is an opportunity to take more market share and retain it when the crisis is over.
- With less companies marketing right now bids will drop across PPC, Social and Display making budgets go further and position one becomes more achievable.
- SEO needs a continual approach and your competitors stopping now means they face months of recovery down the road, while in the meantime you’ll be right there at the top.
- With fewer customers in the market, it’s even more important to be there when they are looking. A smaller pie means you need a bigger slice to make the same revenue.
So you are probably wondering how do I do this without looking mercenary (something even we struggled with writing this), well here are our top tips:
- Maintain your PPC budgets to capture market share.
- Bid on your competitors – if they stop PPC or SEO they will disappear from the search results leaving more opportunities for your business.
- Maintain or increase your SEO activity with new content and new targeting.
- Adopt a confident tone with content – people want reassurance at times like this and your tone will set the agenda.
- Consider running some aggressive short term promotions or incentives in order to attract new customers.
- Be as visible as possible to demonstrate that you are not only open for business, but there to take care of your customers.
If you disappear now, not only will the crisis last longer, but it will take you much longer to recover. There are already businesses out there adopting some of our strategies and they could be your competitors.
Now is the time to take control, not wait out the storm and hope it gets better. It may feel counterintuitive, but as one of the longest established digital marketing agencies, we’ve been through external crises before and we are still here stronger than ever.
If you’d like more advice or support reach out to the expert team at Ricemedia and we’ll guide you through.
