What a historical and challenging year it’s been?
Did you ever imagine that your business would ever close its doors for virtually 12 months due to a global pandemic? No? Neither did I.
The past 12 months have been difficult to say the least, on lives and businesses. It has been a testing year for many sectors including hairdressers, retail shops, gyms, hospitality and event industries.
Looking ahead to a brighter time post-lockdown, the good news is throughout April, May and June, dependent on where you fall on the Government's roadmap, you will likely be reopening your coffee shop, retail store or hairdresser to your valued customer's again.
You may be getting ready for business, so to support you, I am sharing valuable marketing tips to equip you for reopening your doors to your customer’s post-lockdown.
Continue reading for tips and also a special promotional offer at the end of this blog.
Tip 1: Prepare your stock, services and products
To help you prepare here are some questions you might need to ask.
Do you need to do new stock? Now is a good time to do an updated inventory, to ensure you have a replenished amount of hair products, ingredients, supplies or equipment's to meet the needs of your customers once you reopen.
How long will new stock take to arrive? The pandemic and Brexit has disrupted major distribution channels, which means overseas products can now take even longer to arrive to the UK. It is a good idea to check how this might affect you and your stock.
How will you make your shop COVID-19 safe to combat the virus spreading? You might be a hairdresser, beauty salon or retail store and will need to consider the utmost ways you will protect yourself, staff and customers. Also, you might need to consider additional supplies of PPE equipment such as masks for walk-in customers who might turn up without one.
Tip 2: Review areas of success and improvement
Have you thought about doing an audit?
A Marketing Audit is extremely different to HMRC audit. A Marketing Audit is a detailed analysis of your business activities, it is tailored to you and is designed to help you shape your marketing correctly towards your audience.
A Marketing Audit can scrutinise your previous efforts and evaluate new innovative areas you can consider. An audit is an informative method that analyses your efforts that didn’t work beforehand.
An audit will leave you confident in areas you can tap into, it will also analyse changes what didn’t work beforehand so that you can confidently nurture and grow your business.
Tip 3: Plan your marketing
Yes your aim is to sell your stock, services or products but what is your strategic plan that will be executed to ensure you achieve your objectives, services and increase your sales.
Let’s firstly look at what marketing it is. “marketing is the process of planning and executing the conception, pricing, promotion and distribution, of ideas, goods and services to create exchanges that satisfy individual and organisational objectives” (The American Marketing Association).
In other words, marketing is putting a strategic plan in place that can be executed in order to identify and meet your customer needs and your objectives.
A Marketing Plan can be a straightforward plan that includes areas such as your quarterly objectives, goals, promotional strategies or customer retention techniques. It can also include tactics such as the planning of Facebook Ads or SEO optimisation.
Tip 4: Effectively communicate with customers using email marketing
Email is the currency of the web and there are more email addresses than there are Facebook accounts.
Also, you will find that the mass majority of your customers have an email address, and email is an excellent way to communicate with ALL your customers.
The benefits of Email Marketing for your business include:
Effective way to communicate - inform customers of your new COVID-19 safety measures
Keep your customers updated - update them on your new stock, menu or stock
It is a hassle free way to share any new price increases or promotional offers
Increase and maintain customers - send monthly newsletters, business updates or plans
It is quicker to email than call - you can ‘speak’ to all your customers in one go
Two important factors to remember about email marketing. Firstly, to get started with email marketing please seek advice on The GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation 2016/679). Secondly, I advise on implementing a CRM system (Customer Relationship Management system), again please seek advice on this also from a marketing expert.
Tip 5: Connect and reconnect with your customers
I can guarantee that many of your customers are present on Social Media using one of the many social networks such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter or WhatsApp.
Social Media is an excellent tool to engage with your audience online, build an online community and grow an audience or following of potential customers.
Think about going the extra mile when it comes to Social Media because time to level up your social media and grow your online presence. If you would like any ideas let me.
To conclude, I hope you found these tips valuable, send me an email and let me know which ones you’ll be implementing in your business for post-lockdown and the future.
To help you and your business, we are offering a FREE MARKETING AUDIT and 10% OFF YOUR FIRST ORDER.
This offer is valid until 1st May 2021. To take advantage of this offer do be quick.
Nurture Digital Marketing are able to support you with any of the features mentioned in this article. We specialise in Marketing Plans, Email Marketing, Social Media, Facebook Ads, Instagram Ads and generally all things marketing. Do contact us with any questions so we can help you get ready to level up and come back strong.
Book a FREE Marketing Audit or FREE Marketing Consultation or enquire about any of our services. To get started with levelling up your business, simply email info@nurturedigitalmarketing.co.uk
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We look forward to hearing from you.
Makaela Founder, Nurture Digital Marketing
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