Be clear about the results you give, share value on every step of your audience’s way, and keep your eye on your why.
These are the ingredients I think robust and effective marketing should always be made of. But, now that the world is in the throes of the COVID-19 (or coronavirus disease of 2019), it’s more important than ever to put the emphasis on why your clients need you and why you want to help them.
The small businesses I’ve seen who are providing immense value and community support in recent weeks is touching.
This is where marketing is being done right!
My local yoga studio, Power Yoga Canada, is offering free daily yoga sessions over Facebook Live. My boys and I did their kids yoga, and it really made their day. They loved bouncing around like frogs and typing to the instructor in real-time!
We’re in self-isolation for two weeks right now after returning home from a trip to Miami. We haven’t even gone for a walk around the block in a week! So having some outside interaction means a lot to us all!
My friend and owner of Beading Buds, a business that provides beading birthday parties and school workshops, is helping her audience out with at-home beading birthday party ideas and crafts over on her Instagram.
And another friend, personal trainer, and owner of Urban Fitness is putting on free daily fitness classes via Instagram Live!
We’re all in this together. We’re all home, wondering where or how to focus while the world news does a great job at pulling us back into the negative realities of the current global health nightmare.
Providing genuine value that you know your audience needs right now, not only helps them see you as the person they can trust and rely on, but also enables you to reconnect and refocus on what matters through your business.
But, I don’t want to stop at value. And this is why understanding the results you provide your audience is critical.
You provide value through your marketing, but you are also still a business.
So, how do you, as an online business and service provider, sell during the COVID-19 quarantine?
This is where a positive, business-focused mindset might need some re-tuning.
If you’re like me, you’re in business to help others. You have this innate desire to create some serious positive transformation for your clients through the work that you do.
And, with this desire to help others, comes the empathetic wonder if your audience will appreciate being asked for money in exchange for service right now.
The short answer is this: you are still a business owner, and the economy still needs you.
The longer answer is that you are allowed to sell right now. You are entitled to continue helping others in a precious way, providing a serious transformation to those who know they need you, without feeling guilty about asking for money in exchange.
When you continue to make sales, you’re giving permission to other small businesses to make sales. And when other small businesses make sales, the economy is in a better place because of it. And we boost our own morale because of it, too.
Rather than sit still and wait and wait for some sort of public opinion to say, “go ahead now is the time” you shouldn’t stop business as usual. But, you can shift it. And you can change the way you communicate. And you should, more now than ever, get clear about the message you want to spread and why what you do is invaluable to your clients.
So, how do you solidify your message and communicate the results you get people? Here are some ideas that will help you:
- Write out, as many times as it takes, why you started working for yourself. And why what you do matters to you, your clients, and your family.
- If your business and service do one thing for people, what is it? And why is that important to the world or your community?
- Think about your best client. What was this person’s personality like? Where did she find you? Why did she need you right when she hired you? In other words, what was keeping her up at night the moment she found you? And where was she when you left?
- If an exchange (of money) wasn’t made for your service and your results, how would those results change? How do you think the way you approach your work and your mindset around it would change? And what about your clients?
Right now, more than ever during COVID-19, it’s so important to show and share the value of your business to your audience. We need to support each other, help each other, and do our part to lessen the anxiety around us.
I love what I see other businesses doing right now. They are genuinely helping while still marketing (even if some don’t want to call it that. They are marketing in the best way possible because they’re sharing their gifts, providing value, and inspiring. That’s the best type of marketing.)
Follow these examples in your own business, but don’t shy away from the transaction that makes you a business. Don’t shy away from the sale. Your audience needs you every step of the way.
P.S. This workbook provides you with questions that will help you go deeper with your brand’s mission, value, and why so that you can market and sell more confidently and with value. DOWNLOAD FREE HERE.
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