5 Tips to Improve Your Marketing When Working Remotely
To succeed in business, it is essential to constantly adapt and now more than ever there is a need to develop creative marketing solutions to deal with the ever-changing environment we find ourselves in. Here are 5 tips and ideas to help you review and improve your marketing when working remotely.
1. Review and update your website
Let’s face it most of the time you are so busy taking care of day to day business tasks, making updates to your website is the last thing on your to do list.
Your website should act as the hub of your business, providing essential information to customers, so it is worthwhile taking the time to review your website periodically.
By checking how your website appears to visitors you can identify any gaps in content and opportunities to ensure you inform customers accurately about what you offer.
Don’t forget to check what your website looks like on a mobile device as more and more people are likely to visit your site on a mobile phone or tablet. If it doesn’t display correctly on a mobile device, you could be losing potential customers.
If you haven’t already got a business website, take the time to start planning it now. Start by planning the structure and content followed by the images you’d like to use.
Depending on your business you may be able to add an online element to generate additional income. There are a wide range of website builder platforms to help achieve this.
2. Communicate with customers
The key to successful marketing is knowing who your customers are and providing them with what they want. You need to address how the needs and wants of your customers may have changed.
Are you able to offer your product or service in a different way, for example online or remotely by introducing a delivery service?
If not, at the very least it is still important to communicate with your customers to keep them informed and up to date.
The communication should be relevant and could be as simple as an email advising them of your plans for the future or a news article about how your business might be helping the local community.
Newsletters and emails have long been an effective way to keep in touch with customers so long as the information is useful and does not overtly sell.
The key is to get the right content and distribution frequency to keep your customers engaged. After all who wants to receive information of no use every week!
Ensuring your database is cleansed and up to date is another essential part of communication with customers via email.
You need to ensure you only distribute to registered subscribers as it is far more effective to communicate with people who are interested in what you have to say.
Developing a GDPR compliant email sign-up is essential. Thankfully, a lot of this can be achieved simply and effortlessly with a range of web-based technology.
3. Embrace Technology
A range of technology platforms are available to help you keep in touch with customers remotely.
From holding webinars and one-to-one meetings via Skype, Zoom or Microsoft Teams to communicating with a professional looking email or newsletters using Mailchimp or Constant Contact. These are great tools to help you stay in touch with your customers remotely.
If you haven’t already used Google Analytics and Google Console take the time to find out how they work and how the insights they provide can help to improve your website.
Google Analytics is great for providing insights into your customers and Search Console has a range of tools and reports to help measure your website search traffic and performance, fix issues, and help improve your website in Google Search results.
Another great tool is Google Trends which will show you what topics people are searching for. This will help you research what products and services are likely to be in demand.
Save time by managing your social media platforms using scheduling software such as Hootsuite.
This takes the time and hassle out of posting as you can link your social accounts in one place and schedule all your posts for the week ahead in one go.
Most of these platforms are free or offer free entry level accounts, so there is no reason not to give them a go.
4. Plan your time
When working remotely it is easy to lose track of the days as they can merge into one. It is important to keep a structure to your day and the best way to do this is to plan your time.
Try and keep to your usual routine, that means going to bed and getting up to start your day the same as you would as if you were getting up to go to work.
Sitting in front of a computer screen for eight or more hours a day isn’t healthy or productive so ensure you set aside time to exercise or go for a walk, take regular breaks and have a lunch break.
Setting milestones or goals throughout the day is a great way to help get key tasks completed. It is best to do the more difficult and time-consuming tasks, those that you’d probably prefer to put off, first thing in the morning.
5. Focus on your goals
It is important to focus on your business goals. Revisit your marketing strategy or take the time to develop one if you need to. See writing a marketing strategy to grow your business for further help.
By revisiting your mission statement, brand values and target market you can reflect and adapt your strategy where necessary, while keeping the ethos of your business intact.
By focusing on what your customers want it will be much easier to develop and introduce different ways of offering this to them.
For example, you may never have sold your product or service online before because you had a successful retail presence or a referral network with a loyal customer base.
This loyalty does not simply disappear overnight, however, you may have to develop an online strategy to allow your customers to access and purchase the service in a different way.
This could be in the form of an online shop selling a range of your products or offering your service via video instead of face to face.
There are a range of website builder platforms that will allow you to create an online presence with relative ease and cost effectively.
The key is to focus on the core benefit of your business and determine how this can be offered to customers effectively.
Don’t be afraid of change, embrace it and develop solutions that will help your customers and ultimately your business.
Need help with your marketing?
PGW Creative Consultancy can provide your business with advice and support.
Get in touch to arrange a free online marketing consultation or email: hello@pgwcreative.co.uk