Business slow due to COVID?
Five tools to invest in right now.

If you’re a business owner you’ve probably been affected by COVID – if you’re reading this, it’s probably not in a good way. If you’re in a position where your business is still working but revenue is down and you are trying to solve the problem of how to recover and grow from this point – you’re in luck.

I’ve included the top five tools you should be investing in right now to help get your business back on track. Not every strategy is right for every business, but some combination of the strategies listed below will help.

01 – A New Brand Strategy

Sometimes there is nothing wrong with your product or service – just how it’s packaged. COVID has affected your customers’ lives, and when people’s lives change, their priorities and values change as well. Your business may no longer be positioned to connect with your clients anymore – and that’s fine – it just means you may have to rethink your brand strategy.

What is brand strategy? Brand strategy is a blueprint to create a brand that accurately communicates your company’s values in a way that engages with your ideal clients and positions you as an industry leader for your service offerings.

An updated brand strategy will help you take stock of your current situation and pivot your offering to connect with your clients again, allowing you to minimize changes to your current operation while driving growth on a new front.

02 – An Updated Marketing Plan

While the shift to digital marketing started long ago the final push to be online is happening now. The sudden change from an in-person world to a virtual one has rendered a lot of existing marketing plans useless as people’s daily habits and interactions have changed.

The good news? There are lots of ways to find out where your ideal clients are online and how to connect with them.

You can be completely hands-off with your marketing plan having a team of professionals implement it for you, or if you have the time and skills you can do the heavy lifting yourself.

Either way, an effective marketing plan will leverage tried-and-tested digital and traditional marketing strategies to grow your customer base.

03 – A Targeted Content Strategy

Social media consumption is up 72% since covid started. If you’re not posting content online to connect with your ideal clients, someone else is.

Regardless of the platform or format of your content, a solid content strategy allows you to stay top of mind with current clients and prospects while being discoverable by new people. It’s key for creating top-of-funnel interest, helping drive your marketing plan while reinforcing your brand.

Knowing what type of content to create with a strategy to have it dispersed is the key to a successful content strategy. Once again, depending on your resources, you can have someone create and manage the content for you, or set you up with a system on how to do it yourself.

04 – Automating Your Processes

One of the best investments to minimize overhead and improve through-put in your business right now is process automation.

There are many parts of a business that can leverage process automation to increase efficiency and decrease costs. From small segregated processes like client onboarding, to end-to-end business automation, allowing you to manage your entire business through a website on your smartphone.

In the end, the result is a reduction in the amount of manual labour required to operate a business process, resulting in the ability to cut back on staff, redirect their time to more efficient tasks, or allow them to increase output with the same input by simplifying their workflow.

05 – Updating Your Website

Your website is one of the first things prospective clients will see when they search for you. Their experience on your website will play a role in their expectation of the quality of service your business provides and they will compare their experience on your website with that of your competitors before deciding who to call.

If your website doesn’t work well on a mobile phone – people will notice and assume your product or service is not as high value. If people can’t find what they are looking for easily – their frustration will be projected onto your brand as well. If the words you use to describe your service offering don’t clearly connect with their values or needs – they will not take action.

Your website is a huge opportunity to differentiate yourself and create an experience for your clients that will influence your entire working relationship.

Here are some of our other ideas.