RAZOR Web Design Wire Podcast with Matt Reid - COVID-19 Recovery Tips
Hey, everyone. Welcome back. Episode 101 today. Matt from the RAZOR Web Design Wire Podcast.
My first episode of 2020. We've been so flat out and disrupted by the whole COVID-19 Coronavirus outbreak. And businesses, people across the world, are obviously in a very tough time. They're not sure where things are going, where their livelihoods are going, where their businesses are going. The news is obviously still spewing a whole lot of negativity around COVID-19 and it's in many countries, still quite a big issue.
Here in New Zealand, we are recovered from it in my view, pretty much 99/100% nearly, but that doesn't mean we've recovered in terms of the economic impact it's going to have on businesses. There's already been, in New Zealand at least, many layoffs, many redundancies, many businesses closing down. Now, us business owners, we're leaders. We need to focus on growing our businesses in times like this. You know, people go, "Oh, well, I can't grow a business when it's an economic downturn."
No, you actually can grow your business in an economic downturn. If you don't think you can, well, then you probably won't. But if you focus on growing your business and obviously protecting what you already have, then you can make leaps and bounds while others unfortunately may close down.
So, I've got a few tips for you to go through today with you guys around COVID-19 and how to basically just keep your business at the forefront online. Because at the end of the day, you can sit there and watch the news. You can sit there and listen to your family going, "Oh, everything's going to be bad. What's going to happen? The economy is going to collapse. The housing market's going to collapse. Blah, blah, blah." And just get into a rut and a bad mindset and just succumb to your defeat, I guess, or whatever you want to call it.
But anyway, I'm here thinking, "What can I do to make my business succeed or prosper, at least through this period of time? I'm not going to sit there and watch the news. I'm not going to sit there and read Facebook articles about how bad everything is. I'm actually going to focus on my business, because that's what matters."
Anyway, Revising Your Social Media Strategy. So what I'd like you guys to do is first start, make sure you are using a social media platform like Facebook, like Instagram. Are you selling a product? You might be using Instagram? Are you selling a service? You might be on Facebook. Start focusing on your social media strategy and start posting regularly to your page. Don't paste sales information the whole time. Don't be saying, "Oh, come buy my product. 50% off. Blah, blah, blah."
Put testimonials on there. Put reasons why people should be using you at this time of the year. In New Zealand here, it's winter. If you are a house cleaner, promote getting your house clean, so it's protected over the winter period, ready for summer.
Moving on. Start Using Email Marketing. A lot of people do not use the sacred tool of email marketing. I'm going to actually just add a little one in there as well. SMS text marketing is also quite a powerful tool to use as well. Basically get your list of customers, put them into an email list and send them again, useful information, not sales pitches all the time. Combine good quality information with suitable products and services that compliment that. Again, referring to the house cleaner. Perhaps you might be a real estate agent. You could be focusing on how to prepare your house for sale this spring. It's a good time to list your house for sale in spring.
Think about different things that you can email your customers, that they go, "Oh, that's cool. That's informative. That's added value to my day." Don't just bombard them obviously with, "Do you want to buy anything? We've got 50% off this. We got 50% off that. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah."
Anyway, moving on. Writing a Blog. People always say, "Oh, man, I want to come up number one on Google search." Or, "I want to be on the first page. I'm page 10 at the moment."
What I suggest you do... There's so many things you can do, guys, with SEO and these other podcasts I've done, and these millions of podcasts and articles and How To guides on Google that you can go and read.
But my key thing that I'd suggest you do is write a blog. Write articles for your business. If you're a lawyer, you could write, "What's the process of buying a house? What's the process of conveyancing?"
If you're a builder, it could be, "Five things to look out for if you are going to renovate your kitchen." Or, "Five ways to tell if a section, a piece of land, is good to build a house on."
If you're a beauty therapist, it could be, "How to protect your skin in summer." "How to protect your skin in winter." "Five ways to reduce this."
It doesn't have to be a blog like, "Oh, I went to the supermarket today and I bought some makeup and I bought this and I bought...Not a blog blog. Actual, useful articles that you can write for clients and send to them.
So write a blog. Put it on your calendar. If you can do once a week, you're smoking it. But if you can do it at least even once a month, because we're obviously all busy, that's good as well. I try and do one article per month. Now three years on, I've got 30 plus articles on my website and my Google ranking for my own business is working very well.
Now people go, "Oh, well, I don't know how to write a blog. I don't have the time to write a blog."
Mate, I'm the same as well. I don'tknow how to write... Well, I do now. But originally, I didn't know how to write a blog. I went and looked at other people's blogs. I used ideas from there. I started writing blogs. I got better at writing blogs. Simple as that.
You don't have time? Well, what are you doing in your day that's wasting time? You're sitting there watching the news for 10 minutes. Scrap the news. Write your blog post. You're sitting on Facebook for 10 minutes. Scrap Facebook, unless you're doing social media updates. Scrap Facebook. Do your blog post. Simple.
Now Remarketing Strategy is tip number four. Remarketing. Why do I bring it up? Because it's quite affordable. So a little bit of setup involved, but it's an affordable strategy. So you basically, someone comes to your website, they leave, you set up a remarketing campaign, which means your business ads, your logo still keeps popping up to them on different platforms like Facebook and other websites. So set up a remarketing strategy. Again, a bit of a process. I suggest you listen to my other podcasts or again, just research online, guys, "Remarketing Strategies. How do I set up Google remarketing? How do I set up Facebook remarketing?" Otherwise, come and use an expert like myself.
Now, bonus. I've got one final tip here andit's not really anything new or special. It's probably one you already know about... That Call Your Existing Clients. That's what me and my office manager do. I tell my office manager, "Caroline, call our clients and see how they are."
"Dear Client, how are you?" Well, you don't say "Dear Client" on the phone do you?
But, "Hey, Joe, how are you? How's business going?"
You know, "Good. Thank you, very much. How are you?"
"Good, thanks. Is there anything we can help with? It's been a bit of a tough start to the year. We've had a lot of clients coming to us who need help with their website or help with their marketing. Is there anything we can do for you at the moment? Have you considered doing this or this? If you ever need anything, just give us a call, flick us an email and we'll give you some advice. Listen to my podcasts."
So give your clients a call. It's not a sales strategy or sales... Well, it is a sales strategy. It's not a sales pitch though, you know? We're not trying to just sort of hound them to do business with us, but we're just checking in with them.
You'll be amazed at how many clients I rang that go, "Oh, good to hear from you. Yeah, everything's good, thanks. Well, I'm actually fine at the moment. I don't need anything, but I'll get in touch in a few months."
And we also have people say, "Oh, actually, glad you called. I was thinking about you the other week. I need this and this done."
So it's a good way to drum up business through your existing client list. Before you go cold calling prospects, call and keep in touch and build loyalty with your existing customers. That's one of my strongest recommendations and it's not website related or internet related. It's just good old-fashioned customer service.
Anyway, summarizing. Revise your social media strategy. Start using email marketing. Write a blog. Stop watching the news. Stop watching Facebook, unless it's for social media marketing. Set up a remarketing strategy. And my little bonus, call your existing clients regularly and keep in touch with them.
Anyway, guys, I hope even just one of those things you can implement and start doing, and that will give you a positive boost coming up through this economic downturn, or whatever happens in the end. You need to keep focusing on growing your business.
Anyway, that's Matt from the RAZOR Web Design Wire Podcast, and thanks for joining me. I'll talk to you again soon. Cheers.
