Top Five Tips for Your Local Business During a Crisis
Some helpful tips for your business during the COVID-19 Crisis
By Clay Dellos - Owner of Dellos Marketing
1. Make Sure Your Customers Can Find you Online
There isn’t a better time to claim and optimize your online business listings.
Claim and optimize your key local business listings
- Google My Business
- Bing Places for Business
- Yahoo Local Listing
Pro Tip: Include the keywords you want to rank for in your ‘About’ section
Upgrade your website
- Optimize for mobile
- Improve your website speed
- Make sure your website is secure
- Add testimonials to build social proof
- Optimize for customer experience & conversions
- Embed the map from your Google My Business Page
Pro Tip: Upgrading from a “starter website” or enhancing your existing site will improve your online traffic and offline traffic as many customers often checkout your website before calling you or going to your store.
Make sure customers can find your business on the four main mapping apps
- Google maps
- Apple Maps
- Waze
- Mapquest
Pro Tip: You can optimize these map listings with your website url and business information for for increased traffic and improved search rankings
Get more free traffic through Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
- Identify keywords that your customers are searching for
- Optimize your page titles, content, tags and metadata to match those key words
- Use schema markup to increase visibility & click through rate
- Add images and use alt text
- Pro Tip: Include your location when optimizing for keywords (e.g. Plumber in McKinney, TX)
2. Connect with your Customers Digitally
Ramp up your reviews
- Let the customer know that their opinion is valuable
- Overdeliver on service and engage with your customers
- Ask for reviews in person when possible
- Request reviews within a week of the business transaction
- Engage your employees to ask for feedback
- Respond to all online reviews you receive
Pro Tip: Create review request templates in text message & email formats with direct links to your key review pages to make the process easy for you and your customers
Build your email list
- Try offering different freebies that bring value to potential customers
- Add an email opt in form to your website
- Add an exit pop up to your website to capture people’s email before they go
Pro Tip: Keep your email list engaged by providing valuable content instead of constant sales pitches
3. Leverage Social Media
- Repurpose your content across social media platforms. A single Facebook post can easily be used on Instagram, Pinterest, LinkedIn and other valuable platforms
- Post your content and images to your Google My Business page for increased traffic and improved search rankings
Pro Tip: Mix in posts with customer testimonials and posts highlighting the services you offer
4. Provide Value That is Timely and Relevant
- Offer free tips that could aid your customer
- Discounts
- Guides that will provide clear value
5. Ease Your Customers Concerns & Fears
Let customers know that you’re still open, the steps you taken to minimize risk and new options you may have available (examples below):
- We’re open & here to help during the crisis
- Contactless payments available
- Curbside pickup now available
- Free/discounted shipping to help keep you safe
