The Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic we’re currently experiencing has people all over the world concerned for their health. The virus has also had an effect on global supply chains and it’s impossible to forsee how this will affect the economy once it’s all over.
With a lot of companies shutting down for the time being, a lot of people are worried about how to help their businesses survive. If you own an eCommerce store, you can rest assured that you can help your company survive the pandemic, and actually grow your business in the process. All you need to do is apply a few carefully-chosen strategies.
Send Out an Email if Necessary
The main question on every marketer’s mind is if they need to change their email marketing strategies to adjust to the current pandemic situation. If your regular marketing tactics are still proving to be effective, then keep using them. But should you address COVID-19 in your emails?
All of your subscribers have already received an email concerning COVID-19 from practically every business they’ve ever been in contact with and their inboxes are currently over-crowded. If you aren’t careful about the email you send, you can potentially receive backlash from your subscribers.
Don’t just email your clients because everyone else is doing it. Only email them for these reasons:
- You have useful information to share that isn’t already available to everyone.
- Your services have changed because of the pandemic.
- You are doing something to help your customers during this time.
If you need to say something to your customers and want to convey your message efficiently, or just want to improve your current email marketing campaign, you can send mail merge from Excel. This way, you can automate email sending from your list of customers in an Excel sheet.
Use Social Media
Having a social media presence is always important for any eCommerce business. According to eCommerce stats, those that have a social media presence generate an average of 32% more sales than those that don’t. However, in this time social media is more important than ever for communication.
Since people all over the world are staying inside their homes and practicing social distancing, they are spending more time on social media. Use your business social media accounts to communicate directly with your customers and provide them with easy access to the information they need and want to see.
Here are some tips on how to use social media during the COVID-19 pandemic.
- Use all accounts to inform customers of any changes during this time, such as closures, stock shortages, and delivery issues.
- Start special groups for your customers that are concerned and give them regular updates.
- Set automatic replies on Facebook Messenger if you experience a large number of inquiries.
- Continue posting your regular content as well as adding uplifting content to keep your customer’s morale up.
Protect Your Website and Your Clients
Malware and phishing scams are nothing new, as internet hackers have been around almost as long as the internet itself. One of the new tactics hackers are using is stealing customer and company information through emails about COVID-19.
Hackers are using the mass panic due to the pandemic to trick people out of their passwords and personal information. While it’s scary to think that hackers are actually capitalizing on the pandemic, it’s sadly true and we all need to protect ourselves.
Scam emails and websites have revolved around attention grabbing affairs for decades, so this tactic is nothing new. If you want to protect your business website from these attacks you need to install WordPress security plugins that will keep malware and phishing scams at bay.
Keep Track of Your Website’s Analytics
People’s shopping habits are changing, and COVID-19 is only adding to those changes. With analytic software, you can keep track of changes in your traffic and determine why they happened.
If you’re providing a service or a product that’s in high demand because of the pandemic, you probably don’t have to worry about making money at this time. But if you aren’t sure how your sales are being affected, you need to do the following:
- Use annotation markers to signify any key events such as a reduction in ad budget or problems with shipping to see if they coincide with a decreased profit.
- Keep track of how your website visitors behave to see if they are interested in different products than before.
- Keep an eye on demands for certain products. Evaluate whether or not you are meeting the demands, and if you are not, be sure to adjust and meet the demand.
- Set up alerts that will notify you of any changes in your website’s activity such as drops or increases in website visits and sales inquiries.
- Monitor your competition closely with the competitors app to see which strategies your competitors are using to keep their businesses alive during the pandemic.
Re-Think Your SEO Efforts
The pandemic will be over at some point and life will return to normal, so it’s important to have a high-ranking website when that happens. In fact, now is the perfect time to look at any SEO tasks you might have missed in the past.
The one thing you need to remember about SEO in 2020 is that Google is focusing more on specific topics rather than keywords. Since COVID-19 is the most searched topic at the moment, all websites that mention it are more likely to rank higher, but this isn’t the only SEO strategy you can use. Some other SEO strategies you can apply include:
- Optimizing for voice search. A lot of Google searches are now done by voice, and optimizing for this feature can do a lot of good for your SEO.
- Focusing on search intent. There is intent behind every keyword someone types into their search engine. If you want to reach a high-ranking position, you need to study the intent of the keywords your customers are searching with and provide them with the content they intended to find.
- Checking your website’s loading time. Slow-loading websites rank much lower on Google’s list because both search engines and people hate slow-loading websites. If someone has to wait too long to access a website, they will simply leave it.
Final Thoughts
While it’s hard to generate sales with your eCommerce business because of the COVID-19 pandemic, it’s not impossible. You just need to keep a close eye on how your customers are acting, and change your business approach to meet their needs and demands. If you manage to make a profit with your eCommerce store during the pandemic, you will certainly be even more successful after it passes. It’s also important to remember that this chaos will eventually pass, even though we don’t know when it’s going to happen.
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