7 Ways Business Owners Can Stay Productive Despite COVID-19
With COVID-19 spreading, governments around the world are restricting movement.
Social distancing is impacting many businesses—from toy stores and cafes to wedding halls and yoga studios. Despite this setback, there are plenty of ways you can remain proactive during this time.
Here are 7 ways to use this time productively:
Review Your Business Strategy
Optimize Your Site
Create a Blog
Refresh Your Brand
Expand Your Marketing Efforts
Build Your Business Relationships
Take Time for Yourself
01. Review Your Business Strategy
Use this opportunity to take a step back and consider how your business is going. Rethink your goals and aspirations. Go over the nuts and bolts to ensure that everything is running as smoothly as possible.
Analyze your business’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. This will help you identify places for improvement and keep your marketing goals on track. Ask yourself: What’s working? What’s not? What is your competition doing? What competitive advantages does your business have? Have you been fully utilizing them? What are your quarterly/yearly goals? Have you been meeting them?
Tip: Determine where your business stands within your industry. Use this knowledge to strategize ways to better compete with industry leaders. Create a list of ideas that you can implement to increase your revenue within the next year.
Revisit your mission statement.
Define what your business is all about and what value it brings to customers. Create a clear brand identity.
Ask yourself: Is your mission statement clearly expressed through your business? What products or services is your business aiming to provide? What market gaps are you trying to fill? Are you succeeding? Do you need to modify your goals?
Tip: Update your mission statement so it reflects your current goals.
Review your analytics.
Take advantage of the information at your fingertips to learn about what is and isn’t working for your business. Ask yourself: Go through your sales records. Which products are selling? Which ones aren't? Why are certain services selling better? Tip: Use this information to determine what products or services to add to your store in the future. See if you can reposition slow-selling options to make them more marketable. Update product pages, images or prominently showcase the value of the services you provide.
Evaluate your spending.
Carefully go through your financial books. Ask yourself: What costs can you cut? Are there ways you can do things differently to minimize spending? Are your investments paying off?
Tip: Take stock of your cash flow. Make sure your business expenses positively impact your ROI.
Gain insights from your team.
Check-in to see what your team thinks. If you can’t meet up face-to-face, schedule a conference call over Zoom, Google Hangouts or Skype. Ask yourself: Does your team have ideas about how your business can run smoother? Have they heard specific customer requests or concerns that you can address immediately? Tip: Your team may have a different perspective than you do. Be open-minded and hear what they have to say. Reconsider your workflow, work environment and the services you provide, and then modify them as necessary.
02. Optimize Your Site
Give your customers everything they need to shop from the safety of their couches. If you haven’t yet, now is a great time to optimize your eCommerce store.
Update your product pages. Upload multiple product photos that show different angles and how your item looks in real life. Use your product descriptions to express the item’s value. Don’t forget to include product specs.
Go over your business policies. Make your customers feel comfortable completing their purchase. Write clear shipping, return and refund policies and display them on your check out page. Update them to reflect the current climate.
Review your checkout flow. Make it easy for customers to complete their purchase. Minimize the clicks it takes to check out. Write a clear call to action for each product page, like Add to Cart or Buy Now.
Add automations. Set up automated emails to target shoppers who abandon their carts. Update emails that are sent when customers make a purchase or subscribe to your site.
Include reviews and testimonials. Shoppers feel more confident making a purchase if they see reviews. Get feedback by sending automated emails to customers after they make purchases. Showcase the reviews on your homepage and product pages.
Use this in-depth checklist to make sure your store has the essentials it needs to be successful.
03. Start a Blog
Drive traffic to your site by creating a free blog. Blogs are a great way to attract new customers and engage your target audience.
Be a resource for your customers. Use your knowledge in the field to become a thought leader. Write about topics that are relevant and important to your target audience. Provide your professional insight and let customers know the best way to use your products.
Keep your customers updated. Inform your customers of any changes going on in your business, like shipping delays, services moving online and opening hours. Let them know about special sales, discounts or coupons.
Build a community. Blogs and forums allow people to interact with one another and build relationships based on shared interests. Kickstart conversations and create a community around your business.
Attract new customers. Write value-driven articles that are useful to larger audiences. Reference the solutions your business provides, but do so subtly. Don’t make your blog sound like a sales pitch.
04. Refresh Your Brand
When’s the last time you had the headspace to think about your business’s brand identity?
Update your logo. Give your store’s logo a makeover. Try to capture the product and services you offer in your logo’s look. Use Wix Logo Maker to restyle your logo and keep your store looking fresh.
Solidify your brand’s look. Don’t stop at your logo. Fine-tune your site’s design to ensure the look matches your brand. Create a unified brand across your website and social platforms that customers will recognize and remember.
Create print-on-demand products. Consider adding some branded products to your site with print-on-demand services, like Printful or Printify. Create products that are relevant to your business. Add your logo to t-shirts or tote bags. Easily import these products to your business site or offer them as part of a promotion.
05. Expand Your Marketing Efforts
Determine the best marketing strategy for your business. Review your previous marketing successes and failures and consider new options.
If you haven’t yet, create social media pages for your business.
Millions of people worldwide are stuck at home and spending more time on social media. This means there’s a huge need for engaging content.
Be clever and think outside the box. Create inspiring social posts, interesting videos about your products or services, hilarious memes and more.
Create a social calendar. Build a backlog of posts for your social channels. Organize posts by campaign and target audience. You can even get a head start on preparing social promotions for major upcoming holidays.
Attract attention to your business and to your brand. Set up a Facebook Ads campaign with Wix. Choose products to feature and an audience to target, then let Wix’s AI do the rest.
Create email newsletters to update your customers about new products, promotions or blog posts.
Set up your business’s email address and create different lists of customer emails. Target different groups with different content.
Use attention-grabbing subject lines to get customers to open your email and click through to your site.
Let customers find your business online. Rank higher on search engines like Google by optimizing your site for SEO.
There are plenty of things you can do to increase your site’s chances of being found. Narrow down the main keywords people will use to search for your products or services. Then use these short phrases to write your site’s SEO title and description. If you need help with this process, consider using Wix SEO Wiz. This tool provides your business with a tailor-made SEO plan and walks you through implementation. You can also follow tips from the Wix SEO Guide.
Bonus Tip: If you built your site with Wix, use the Wix Owner app to send push notifications in order to keep your site members notified about promotions as well as any changes in your business.
06. Build Your Business Relationships
Reach out to customers, clients, suppliers, and mentors via email or social media. You may not be able to meet up for a coffee, but you can still set up online or over-the-phone business meetings.
Contact your role models. Your business mentors will have more time now. Pick their brains for ways to improve your business. Get advice, brainstorm and revise your business strategy.
Reach out to business contacts. Check-in on how your suppliers, fulfillment centers and other colleagues are coping. It can be therapeutic to talk with people going through similar experiences. Even if you don’t need each other’s business now, put effort into maintaining these relationships.
Get to know your customers better. Everyone is anxious. Build deeper relationships with your customers through transparency and by addressing their concerns. Reach out to them using the Wix Owner app or Wix Chat. Create a forum and actively respond to questions from your community.
Partner with potential influencers. Use influencer marketing to promote your products and services. Search social media to find relevant influencers, like celebrities, reporters, bloggers or content creators. Then reach out to them for help promoting your brand.
07. Take Care of Yourself
While this is not directly business related, don’t overlook this tip. During this stressful time, it’s crucial to do whatever you can to protect yourself, your team and your family.
Follow guidelines from the World Health Organization, your government and local health officials. Avoid public gatherings and practice social distancing. If possible, stay home.
While you may be forced to be away from your business, use the time to practice self-care. This is a trying period for everyone so take it easy and cut yourself some slack.
Consider taking up a hobby or starting an online course. Learn to code, take a marketing course or start a YouTube channel. Recharge so that when business returns to normal you are ready to jump back in with full force. Your customers will be waiting.
Want more tips like these? Read Coronavirus: What every business owner needs to know.
Brielle Gordon
Marketing Writer, Wix eCommerce
Brielle is a Colorado native with a passion for innovation and helping to mobilize entrepreneurs. Brielle is a marketing writer for Wix eCommerce, which powers over 700k online stores worldwide.
