As business owners and marketing and communications professionals, how do we adapt our communications during a crisis? We are all experiencing a difficult time with the coronavirus - many closed businesses, financial concerns, working remotely, concern for loved ones and those in need.

1. If you have a scheduled or automated social media or email program, pause and re-think each communication. Consider these questions. Who is your audience? How is the current situation affecting them? Might their business be closed or are you communicating to the healthcare workers? Marketing to healthcare workers at this time, may seem insensitive. The same goes for businesses that have been asked to close temporarily.
2. How do we communicate to businesses that are heavily impacted during the coronavirus? Consider sending a simple note acknowledging what they may be experiencing. Let them know you and your team are thinking of them and are available to support them if needed. Provide information on your own new business hours or practices, product or service availability. Let them know where they can access up to date information on your business and cleaning practices if appropriate.
3. Avoid humor. There are plenty of memes being shared on social media, however, it is important to show your customers and employees you are taking the situation seriously and that you care.
4. Find a way to help and welcome your team to get involved. Joining together to contribute to community relief such as food bank donations, personal supplies to your local free store, or checking on seniors living alone make all the difference. Giving back most importantly helps those in need and also can lift employee and customer spirits.
5. Evaluate and communicate as needed as the situation changes. Your type business and your unique situation will determine how often and what information to share with customers.
6. Remember internal communications. As business owners, it's our role to act as leaders by providing open and honest communication, let people know you are available to answer questions, act in a calm and steady manner and provide encouragement.

1. Review your business plan. Do you have a strategic business plan for the year?  If so, fantastic. Now is the time to check in to see if it’s still serving you. What changes are happening in your market; are there new competitors to consider? Successful companies understand that in business, things can change quickly and taking a proactive and flexible approach is critical. If you don’t have an official strategic business plan, the good news is, it’s never too late. Hire a third-party expert to guide you through the process and to help keep you on track all year long.
2. Don’t miss out on industry learning. Perhaps you are already aware of key industry conferences and events but haven’t taken time to register to attend or to plan to exhibit. Have you ever noticed that the industry ‘movers and shakers’ not only attend but speak and exhibit at important events? Now is the time to jump in the game, either to attend, or submit your own speaker proposal. 
3. Evaluate your marketing and sales results. Do you have all the numbers behind your marketing and sales efforts? What is your ROI on marketing programs? How many leads are you generating and what is the conversion rate from leads to sales? Taking a dive into the numbers makes it easier to identify what’s working and what’s not. Now is the time to adjust your marketing and optimize the sales process to ensure you reach your year-end goal. 
4. Check in with your team. Spring is the perfect time to check in with your team to learn more about how things are going. Take time to get feedback and ask questions. What is going well? What can we do better? Is there anything new in the market or your area of expertise that impacts our plan? Name one thing you can do to positively impact revenue this year. Employees appreciate being asked their opinions and leaders usually learn something new. 

Let's talk, we can help. 

 
If your organization’s social media program isn’t in high gear, here are a few tips to get there. You wouldn’t enter a cycling team in a long-distance race without a great deal of preparation from planning to training, and ensuring you have the all the right gear to go the distance. Success with social media and digital marketing also requires planning, preparation and of course flawless execution.  It takes a team to pull it off.

Many business and marketing professionals have asked me where to focus their social media and how to make the most of it.  As mentioned in the past, I believe strongly in first developing a strategy and a plan, identifying who you want to reach, and with what message and call to action.  First find out what your target market is talking about online.  Listen and learn from conversations in your industry. Then develop an editorial calendar and adjust if current events change the conversation.

After you’ve developed a strategy, or worked with a professional outside firm to help you develop one, execution is critical.  A colleague one said “Execution Eats Plans for Breakfast”.  This is true in so many scenarios—of course in sports, and also when it comes to marketing through social media.  Even the best plan won’t garner results without a skilled team of experienced social media experts handling the execution.

Several times I’ve seen businesses assign team members with very little social media experience or training to implement their social media plan. The thinking goes something like this ….”Well, anyone can post on Facebook or Twitter.”  But this same group of business managers probably wouldn’t consider assigning ‘just anyone’ to developing key content for their sales messages, or their website.  They are typically disappointed with their social media results and find themselves wondering if it’s really an effective route for marketing.

 Social Media isn’t just about posting and activity, it’s about interacting with customers and potential customers on relevant information they are interested in discussing in a conversational way. It’s about positioning your organization as a ‘thought leader’ by serving up fantastic ideas and content that is helpful to your audience. And this takes an expert’s approach.  If you want to manage your social media internally, plan to dedicate the hours necessary to win the race. Assign a team manager with lots of experience and understanding of social media. Gather a team of 3 – 4 people or more depending on the size of your organization, and offer continual training to keep them up to date on the constantly changing environment.  Set team goals and monitor results during execution.  Remember, ‘Execution Eats Plans for Breakfast’.
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If you don’t have the internal resources available to dedicate to social media, talk to a professional about creating a social media team for your business. Let’s Chat. www.bohmanmarketing.com.  

Have you developed marketing personas for your customers and prospects? With the multitude of digital marketing options including social media, blogging and email lead generation plans, tailoring your content to make it more relevant to buyers will most likely improve your results. Marketing personas are a great way to get started.

As a small to mid-sized business marketer, no doubt you’re wearing multiple hats and may be short on resources. Follow these steps to start using customer personas to improve your digital marketing results:

1. Start with research. It can be as simple as talking to your customers to get to know their real interests and needs.  Let’s say for example, you sell software to medical practices and your target is a practice manager and a physician. A medical practice manager may be looking for ways to save time, run the front office more efficiently and ways to simplify her job. A physician may be interested in improving patient care and increasing revenue.
2. Identify influencers vs. decision makers.  In the case of marketing technology to a medical practice, you will mostly likely need to go through the practice manager (influencer) to reach the physician (decision maker). Both audiences have different interests and you will want to develop customized and relevant messaging to grab their attention.
3. What challenges do your customers face? In our example, perhaps scheduling patients efficiently, running a profitable practice or fast access to patient information is critical. Ask your customers what their daily challenges are as it relates to your product.
4. How can you solve customer challenges? Once you understand their issues, it’s much easier to develop your marketing offering and message by framing your offering in terms of solutions and benefits that are meaningful to each persona.
5. Demographics. Of course, you’ll want to consider your customer’s gender, education level, age and other factors as part of your writing style to each audience.
6. ​Determine customer communication preferences. Do they consume most of their news and information on social media, if so, where? Search for online topics relevant to your product or service and join the conversation by answering questions, positioning yourself as an expert.

Now that you have your customer personas, take a quick review each time you're developing content and write as though you are speaking to them.  You'll be on your way to more effective marketing.

Did you say car ride? Nothing like hanging my head out the window as my ears flop in the wind.

Translation: Customers and prospects love to be taken on an interesting journey. Sharpen your storytelling skills to share customer successes.

If you feed me crap, I’ll most likely be suspicious of what your feeding me the next time around.

Translation: If I sign up for your email list, and you send me content that isn’t interesting or relevant, I may not open your future emails. Keep it up and I may unsubscribe all together!

How ‘bout a belly rub? Ah, that feels so good.

Translation: Even business prospects like to receive a compliment now and then. Keep it positive and praise those in the industry when they deserve it.

You don’t look familiar.

Translation: No SPAM please! If I didn’t ask for your content, chances are I’m not interested.

If you ask me to do a trick and provide a treat, I’m probably all in.

Translation: Remember to have a clear and concise call to action – and it doesn’t hurt to throw in a special offer to get your prospects to respond.

Did you just call my name? I respond to that.  

Translation: Take the extra time to personalize all outgoing email and test it before sending.

Uh, is that a cat video? I prefer the Puppy Bowl!

Visuals matter. Be sure to use relevant photos, infographics and videos to that resonate with your audience. 

Contact us today - to talk about growing your leads and revenue! 
www.bohmanmarketing.com /contact