How to Market Your Business During COVID-19
Now, more than ever, it’s crucial for you to get your name out there and generate interest in your business. While COVID-19 forces businesses into isolation, take the time to focus on building your contact lists, getting new members, connecting with your loyal community and increasing word of mouth. You need to be ready to go full speed ahead after using the temporary shutdown to build your business.
Here’s a list of our top suggestions to make the most of this time and use marketing to connect with your community:
Use Social Media
Help your community on social media by giving the people what they want: exceptional content! They’re looking to you for help through this time of crisis. Becoming the solution will put you in a great position when the pandemic passes; they’ll remember that you had their best interests at heart as a useful source of information.
Inspire your community with uplifting and motivational content, too. Help your clients set goals and follow through to hit their targets. Keep them focused on their health and fitness by posting and sharing videos, photos and text that will inspire them to keep going.
Another way to make the most of social media is by creating a contest! To get your community excited, choose a prize that you know they’ll love like new fitness equipment or a gift card for their favorite workout apparel store. Contests are a great way to make a name for your business, while building your brand and increasing engagement among your community.
Offer a Promotion
A promotion is another way you can market your business while we’re physically distancing. This strategy also has the bonus of adding income to your bottom line, while keeping the lines of communication open and giving more value for your customers.
Even though your clients can’t visit you in person, you still have options!
- Offer discounts on online classes and virtual memberships, like 50% off during the pandemic.
- Consider selling gift cards at a discounted price to encourage clients to purchase them for online classes/memberships, or for future in-studio classes. For example, offer 20% off $100 gift cards to give them more bang for their buck!
- Give students a special price for 14-month annual memberships and include a free perk like a free one-on-one session or towel service when you reopen.
These are all ideas to add value for your clients during a time where their income may be limited, and this helps you generate a little extra revenue when you need it most. Market a promotion that helps your clients and your business at the same time!
Create a Rewards Challenge
Loyalty has its rewards, and it’s a great time to remind your customers why they chose you by showing how much you value their support. Try tying extra reward points to purchases like merchandise or online memberships, boosting their rewards for referrals, or even adding bonus points when they get friends to also sign up for your rewards program. Building your loyalty rewards member list and keeping your most loyal clients happy will have your business bouncing back in a snap during the post-pandemic recovery!
Get Clients to Leave Reviews
We talked briefly about the importance of loyalty above, but here’s where it really matters. The time for strengthening your brand is now, and your loyal clients are your most valuable asset!
Ask for reviews
Sometimes all it takes for a positive review is to ask for it! Approach your community to help you in your time of need— your loyal clients will want to help your business survive the pandemic! Consider sending out an e-blast with a link, host a livestream or class where you show them where they can easily leave a review, or you can reach out to your clientele directly and ask for a review.
A good place to start would be asking that they leave a review about how you’re handling the crisis like a pro. Have you offered online classes? Provided discounts? Maybe you’ve called your clients to see how they’re doing during this crisis? These things put you and your business in a good light, and this is when you should ask for a review.
Reward clients for reviews
Encourage your community to step up as your cheerleaders by rewarding them for their support! This can look like a personal message, small perk, or a campaign with a specific promo offer when they leave reviews or referrals. You might be surprised by how this little push will encourage members of your community to help.
Share positive testimonials
Don’t forget to show your gratitude and help spread the word by sharing all the positive reviews you get to effectively market your business during the COVID-19 closures! Post testimonials on your social media feed. Share positive reviews on your website. You can even feature positive reviews on your Instagram feed or in your email newsletter.
Join Forces with Other Businesses
Want to market your business to a whole new crowd? It’s time to partner up! Businesses across all industries are feeling the effects of COVID-19, so getting together with similar businesses can help you both out.
Seek out a partnership with a business that aligns with yours to offer your clientele more value. Make sure the content you share is relevant and will be of interest to both audiences. Host a webinar for both your audiences, be a guest interview on a live stream and share each other’s blogs, or even offer freebies for sign-ups from each other’s communities and email lists. This is a strategy to market your business where everybody wins!
Grow your Business with Automated Marketing
Have you incorporated automated marketing into your strategy? WellnessLiving’s built-in automated marketing allows you to reach your community on a mass scale, get instant feedback with SMS campaigns, send reminders, alert clients on promos, and it provides you with valuable tracking data via your customer text responses.
Communication, increasing engagement, and adding a personal touch are critical during this time when we can’t be face-to-face, so make it as easy and effective as you can! Studies show that texts have an impressive 98% open rate, which is much higher than it is for emails. For clients who don’t check their emails frequently, texting provides an immediate opportunity to update your clients, ask for their feedback or direct them to your other platforms like social media or your website. SMS also works without an internet connection, so it doesn’t rely on wi-fi or force recipients to use data.
In addition to automating marketing, check out these other built-in WellnessLiving features to boost your marketing and grow your business:
Reserve with Google integration: Our dynamic partnership with Google allows you to gain brand exposure, provide quick-and-easy booking for customers, and generate new leads like never before!
Website widgets: Our widgets are a great tool for your website because they act as a window into your software. This means that you can use a lead capture widget to store prospect information, have clients book services through your site or even make purchases without navigating away from your website.
Direct booking: In WellnessLiving, a direct booking link is automatically generated when you create a service or class to allow students the ability to instantly book your classes, appointments, or services right on your website. You can also feature this link on your website or with your automated marketing to get clients to sign up for class!
Direct buy links: Similar to direct booking, a direct buy link sends clients to the store to purchase your product or gift card. Through your automated marketing, you can also share this link via email or text messages!
The Final Word
Be proactive and market your business during COVID-19 to be in a good position to kick off an impressive relaunch. Stay in contact with your clients, add value and grow your numbers with a winning marketing plan. WellnessLiving’s software includes lots of tools to help improve your marketing strategy and put you at the forefront of your industry. Book a no-commitment demo today to learn more!
