How Businesses Can Stay Competitive During Pandemics

Australia and New Zealand are some of the first countries in the world to ease stay-at-home restrictions since the start of the Coronavirus Disease (Covid-19) pandemic. Thanks to falling infection rates, these 2 countries are slowly opening businesses and slightly relaxing some social distancing rules.

However, many restrictions are still in place. In some states and territories, many restaurants are prohibiting dine-in services. There are also states that allow some travel but only at a limited distance. With many of these rules becoming the “new normal” not only for Australia, New Zealand and other countries many are asking how businesses can stay competitive while the pandemic rages on.

Here are some strategies you can consider:

Use The Power of Social Media

Many people are still stuck at home right now so they are probably spending a lot of time on social media. Keep in contact with them with relevant content so that they are kept engaged.

Spend some time brainstorming new content that is relevant during the pandemic. For example:

• How is your business helping the community during this time?
• How are you making life easier for customers?
• How do you want customers to think of you during this crisis?

Replacing content from sales driven to general concern and care can have a big impact on how customers perceive your company. For example, if your brand is in the outdoor recreation space, you can create content on how individuals and families can still have fun indoors.

Informative videos, articles and photos on your social media accounts can also extend your reach and by regularly producing fresh and relevant content, you can stay in the minds of your customers even during this pandemic.

Bring Business Online

Despite the easing of restrictions in some countries, many businesses still remain shut. And despite the fact that ecommerce stores have been around for quite some time, many businesses are still relying on their brick-and-mortar stores for a big portion of their sales. The pandemic is an ideal time to change that.

Since many businesses are still closed and many people still hesitant to go outside; online shopping is booming. Platforms like WordPress can help you transition from a traditional physical store to having an online business so you can still continue serving customers during the pandemic.

Many customers will also be using Google to find out if you’ve opened your business already. Register with Google My Business so that you can display your business hours, address, posts, photos, and even reviews. If you already have an account, update operating hours and other changes to ensure that customers are informed.

Adjust Your Advertising Strategy

If your business is closed then there’s no need for you to create advertising enticing customers to drop by your store. Now is the time to adjust your advertising strategy by going back to the basics and ramping your SEO organic marketing.

Use SEO techniques in order to keep your brand in the mind of your customers by regularly appearing on their feeds and build your reach with fresh content. Consider examining your industry for:     

• Topics important to your customer    
• Keywords based on important topics    
• Build a blog that is regularly maintained

Prepare for Long Term

As we write this blog today, infections are going down in many countries like Australia, Taiwan, South Korea and New Zealand. However, there are still many countries like the United States, United Kingdom and Germany that are continuing to see a rise in infections and deaths. Therefore, it is reasonable to say that the Covid-19 pandemic won’t be vanquished soon and finding ways to cope for the long run should be included in your business strategy.

Some good examples include shifting from in-store buying to deliveries or shifting from cash payments to cashless options to limit physical contact. It is also important to keep in touch with customers regularly. Ask them for their feedback so that you can improve services and keep them happy. Take time to reassure them that while deliveries and cashless payments are the “new normal”, the world will regain normalcy once quarantine ends.

Bottom Line

Covid-19 hit many businesses, big and small in different and hard ways.  What’s worse is that the pandemic isn’t going to be over anytime soon. Whenever it ends, businesses need to buckle up, reassess and make changes to their strategies so that they can weather this storm.

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