How will you stay in front of your audience so that they're ready to buy when you're ready sell? If you're short on ideas, I'm giving you 3 in this quick episode.

Staying in front of your audience is so important, even if you aren't selling right now. And these three ideas are just a starting point for doing just that.

 In this episode you'll learn:

→ Ways to think about how your approach your customers.
→ Idea #1 – do a social hang
→ Idea #2 – start creating content.
→ Idea #3 – host a contest or giveaway

Want to skip ahead?  Here are some key takeaways:

[2:56] Idea #1 – social hang. Get on video with your clients and customers so they can get to know you better and have fun chilling with you.
[4:22] Idea #2 – get your content going. Now is the time to start creating a blog or podcast or YouTube channel that provides entertainment and education for your audience.
[5:55] Idea #3 – host a contest or giveaway to generate activity and have some fun with your audience. Showing up regularly and giving things away each week could be fun. Decide when people can use the gift card or giveaway. 

Full Transcript

[INTRO] Hey there, everybody. Welcome to a fast Fact Friday episode of the Digital Marketing Therapy podcast. My name is Sami and I am your host of the Digital Marketing Therapy podcast. So happy to be here with you today.

And I wanted to touch base a little bit in this episode on crisis management and not necessarily crisis, like creating your crisis management plan. But, you know, we're several weeks into this interesting shutdown and quarantine and shelter in place. And businesses are experiencing things in a very different way than they had been before and in a way that I don't think any of us could have ever even created a crisis plan for.

And so I wanted to share with you kind of three ways that you can maybe still stay in front of your audience, still engage with your audience, and maybe even generate a little bit of revenue, but really be there as a way to provide service so that they can be ready to come back when things open up when the economy starts to pick up a little bit when we can start to go outside and utilize other products and services again. We want them to be ready to come to you and ready to spend their dollars with you. So that you can keep your business up and running and keep providing that amazing service that you do for people and keep things moving forward.

So that's what we're going to talk about in this real quick, Fast Fact Friday episode. Let's get to it.

[CANNED INTRODUCTION] You're listening to the digital Marketing Therapy Podcast. I'm your host, Sami Bedell-Mulhern. And each week, I bring you tips from myself and other experts, as well as hot seats with small business owners and entrepreneurs to demystify digital marketing and get you on your way to generating more leads and growing your business. 

[BODY] Okay, so the big thing for me right now is really wanting to make sure that we're still providing a service to people that we're still staying top of mind, but that we're coming at it from a place of grace and gratitude. And there's so many different things. So for me, depending on your industry, but for me in marketing, I still want to make sure I'm providing you all with tips and ideas and thoughts, ways that you can be learning more about things you've been afraid of before. New things to try getting online differently, I want to still give you very specific industry type things so that, you know, you can maybe pivot your business in a different way or innovate or create a new product or service that can support people during this time in a real authentic way.

I also think that there's a huge opportunity right now to build better relationships with the existing customers that you have and deepening those relationships. So even if you're not selling to them, providing kind of entertainment, providing an opportunity for them to forget about what's going on for a little bit. And you're being the conduit to that helping them support them in that is also extremely impactful.

Idea #1

And so the first idea that I want to give you is doing a social hang. So I've done this with a client and we do it via zoom, and we invite our entire list. We invite people on social media, our CEO or product development team, whoever makes sense to come on can talk. And it's a great way to answer questions, to get feedback from your customers, and to just provide that extra support to do a face to face. To say, yeah, we're just sitting at home chillin just like you are. And we want to do that with you or customers. Because even if you can't buy from us right now, you know, maybe you're a restaurant and you want to teach people how to cook from home. So they can't necessarily buy your food, but they can still interact, engage with you.

Or maybe you've got new products that are in the works, and you want to share some back, you know, behind the scenes, r&d, or whatever that they might want to know about so that they just can't wait to buy it when it does come out. And when people are able to go shopping.

Maybe you are a nonprofit, and you want to use this time as an opportunity just to share more stories of how you impact people and how people have been impacted and allow people to share those stories live with other potential donors, and even if there's not an ask at the end, or maybe there is an ask at the end, you know, but how can we virtually connect and build community with each other. And there's so many amazing platforms that could help you do that. So I would look into doing things like that.

Idea #2

Number two is, like I said, I'm still coming out with content that is valuable to my audience. And so maybe now is the time to start that blog you've always been thinking about starting or starting that podcast or starting that YouTube channel. And giving people resources for the industry that you're in is hugely impactful.

Let's say you're a campground and people can't come camp at your campground so maybe you can start to write a blog post anyway about what it takes to run your campground. What are the ways that you provide you know, top-notch service? What are the things that you do to keep your facility clean? Like all of the things that people are going to care about that you maybe haven't published before? But are going to be like, Oh, yeah, I need to get out there when we're able to go like, that's where I need to go.

Or maybe you are a hair salon. And so you've always wanted to start a blog about, you know, hair care maintenance and what you can do to make your color last longer, all of these things that people are definitely going to be searching for now. But they're not obsolete once COVID 19 is over, right? Because these are things that people search for all the time.

So how can you take this opportunity to solidify yourself as an industry expert, as a community partner as a just knowledge base in your field and writing regular content and copy is a great way to do that.

Idea #3

And the third thing that I want to throw out there is creating contests or doing giveaways. Maybe you can't sell your product, but you could still give things away.

So maybe every week, if you know you're going to give away a $50 gift certificate to your restaurant, and the great thing about this, and maybe it's only to be used October through December or something, I don't know. But the great thing about this is that it cost you nothing now, and will help continue to drive traffic and awareness to your location for when things do open up and people can come.

Maybe it is a partnership that you do with several other people. Maybe it's your entire block of brick and mortar stores in a downtown area. And you all come together and you say, let's create an event that can drive traffic to us when we are able to open again and how can we do that.

Or maybe it's even something as simple as saying, hey, if you buy 50 if you need cash flow, if you buy $50 worth of gift cards from us today, then we will give you a $50 gift card that you can use six months later.

[CONCLUSION] So just think about ways that you can stay in front of your audience, obviously via social media, creating regular consistent content, being of service creating hangouts with your audience. I love all of these ideas. And I know there's so many more. These are Fast Fact Friday episodes. So I don't want to take up too much of your time. But if you love this topic, if you want me to flesh this out a little bit more, please let me know. And I'd be happy to do that.

But for now, take care of yourselves. Stay healthy. And I'm here for you in our Digital Marketing Therapy sessions. If you want to brainstorm ways that you can take advantage of some of these ideas in your business. Head on over to thefirstclick.net/officehours it's completely free. I look forward to chatting with you. But for now, subscribe wherever you listen so you don't miss out on another episode. And thank you so much for taking the time to listen. I appreciate you very very much and I will see you in the next one.