Kristy Bonner, VP Digital Services
The oil and gas business sector has long weathered the storms – literally from hurricanes to market price fluctuations to layoffs and budget cutbacks … and now comes COVID-19. With mass travel bans, industry event cancellations, social distancing and supply shortages everywhere, 2020 is already becoming a roller-coaster ride that has many businesses just trying to hold on.
Whether you agree with the pandemic panic or not, it is already impacting your business and your life. Most of us are trying to continue on as best we can by working remotely, taking extra precautions such as hand sanitizing and singing while we wash our hands (yes, The ABCs or Happy Birthday work), all while finding ways to reach customers – from a distance – in the heavily relationship-based business-to-business environment.
Foster Marketing, like many others, is being diligent in the face of coronavirus fears. While our offices are open, we have temporarily put a Work From Home (WFH) policy in place as a precaution, and our team is able to work remotely to push forward to keep our clients’ marketing efforts on track. We firmly believe now is NOT the time to put all your marketing efforts off and hide out until May (or whenever the pandemic is over). And, no matter what is ahead, we are committed to fighting the plague of business interruptus.
Hopefully, your biggest issue is finding toilet paper, but here are some business and marketing tips to move forward in the current corona-crazy times.
Market On
In times like these, you can bury your head under the covers or push forward. While our day-to-day operations may have adjusted for the next few months, the day-to-day needs of customers and prospects do not completely stop – even for COVID-19! So, we need to keep at it; and in this digital age, we can.
The great marketer Al Reis said, “First in mind IS first in market.” Don’t let COVID-19 claim your seat at the table. Now is a great time to focus on creating content and campaigns to build your business into the future. Plus, with travel bans and canceled shows, you and your team may have more time – and dollars – to commit to this effort. Make the most of it. Consider spending time now to make an impact later with some of the following ideas:
- Create executive and thought leadership Q&A campaigns.
- Plan targeted social campaigns to reach specific segments or around specific products/services.
- Build customer eblast series or newsletter content.
- Write a whitepaper, online guide or publish an eBook.
- Amp up your news release schedule. We could all use some good news!
- Make industry articles a priority.
- Create informative product/service features via graphics, interactive experiences or videos.
- Focus on project experience and case study development.
- Do some market research and customer surveys to keep in touch and gain information.
- Spend some time looking to see if website updates are needed.
- Plan new online content for your website.
- Review your SEO list and tweak your website copy.
- Take a hard look at your goals and metrics across the board: How many followers on LinkedIn do you want by next month? How many web visitors do you want to have by Q4?
- Plan a webinar, online event or real-time Q&A. Social media is a great fit for this!
- Take a pause to review your current presentations and collateral to plan updates or overhauls.
Social Distancing? Go All-in Digital
Even if face-to-face is a bit difficult with travel bans and social distancing, you can still get in front of your customers and prospects using digital tactics. Take this opportunity to engage your audiences in a meaningful way, even if it is from afar. Here’s a list to ponder:
- Host a web or online event such as a Q&A on your website or social channel.
- Partner with an industry publication to get involved in an online forum.
- Leverage email capabilities to promote video content and online meeting scheduling … and anything else you have ready to share!
- Evaluate and expand your personal LinkedIn profile: Consider adding professional groups, seeking recommendations and showcasing your experience.
- Expand and update company social channels: Add visuals, links, product pages, hashtags and seek out reviews.
- Consider joining LinkedIn groups as a way to stay informed and message new prospects.
- Write an article to post and share on LinkedIn. Include questions to provoke comments to really engage your audience.
- Use online polling to spark social engagement. You have a captive audience so use it!
- Record a video such as a product demo or explain your technology to share on YouTube.
- Run a social giftaway campaign to take advantage of a captive audience working at home.
- Engage digitally: Any way you can – direct LinkedIn invitation, like/follow posts from those you’d like to do business with and direct message prospects to check-in and offer support.
- Pull out your SEO target list and start planning content, articles and landing pages to boost your results.
- Jump into paid social to increase the eyeballs seeing your content.
- Give paid search a try. Take our COVID-19 challenge!
JOIN FOSTER’S LIVE LINKEDIN EVENT
We will host a live event from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. (CDT) Tuesday, March 24 on LinkedIn when a few of our experts will respond to some concerns about the effects of COVID-19 on both internal and external challenges we are hearing and any questions we get on our company page. Hear from Foster Marketing President Tiffany Harris, VP Account Services Megan Schreckenbach and VP Digital Services Kristy Bonner.
The Show Must Go On
Many industry events have been postponed or canceled – check our website for the latest updates. But, the show can still go on – online that is. If you had a presentation ready to go or video content queued up to play on the show floor, all is not lost. You have content ready to share! Turn your OTC presentation into an online webinar by uploading your slides and even recording your audio. Promote video content via your website and social media channels. Tell the world about your informative presentation via email. You can likely attract way more eyeballs than could possibly fit in one room using this approach. If you have great content to share, consider spending a little money to leverage targeted LinkedIn promotions such as text ads or email.
Have a Backup Plan
Things happen: People take vacation or get sick, so you need to have plans in place to cover tasks while some team members are unavailable. Do you have a backup system for your social posters in the event they are unavailable? If you need to get something up on your website now, can you? Take a minute to step back and look at where you might need some cross training on your team and have a who-to-call plan at the ready. The team at Foster Marketing is actively helping fill staff gaps for multiple clients during this time.
The COVID-19 Quarantine
How ready were you for a sudden shift in your operations? With most businesses now working remotely, this is a good time to take a hard look at your systems. Are you set up to allow your staff to fully operate remotely? Do you have methods in place to stay connected to clients and staff – no matter where they are working?
Technologies such as VoIP and apps allow you to take calls and communicate with customers like you are sitting in your office, whether you are at home or stuck in an airport in Dubai. Web conferencing and messaging tools (GoToMeeting, Lync, Skype for Business and Teams, to name a few) should be in your toolbox for both employee and client communications. Do you have a secure place to share essential information with employees out of the office such as an intranet? We also recommend leveraging email and enewsletters to share information with employees and to get essential messages out to customers quickly, whether you are sending information to 50 employees in Louisiana or Texas or 5,000 across the globe. With the rise of AI technologies, tools such as ChatBots on your website may be just the thing you need to allow customers real-time messaging.
It’s a Hackers’ Holiday
There are scarier things than bubble wrap from China to worry about. Sadly, when life gets crazy, there are those who will try to take advantage: hackers. It’s a hackers’ holiday with remote operations in play, and you need to take a moment to ensure you have a plan in place. Make this an opportunity to review your policies on remote-access security and handling sensitive documents from personal computers. Are your computers and systems upgraded to handle current security patches? Is your team taking all necessary security precautions with email scam diligence, password security (password phrases are now recommended), antivirus software, etc?
Moving Ahead
As an industry, we live the truism: This too shall pass … and COVID-19 is no different. Though there is likely more craziness ahead, taking action now can help your business to keep growing as we wait out this crisis.
And, as always, Foster Marketing is here to help you not just survive … but to THRIVE!
BONUS TIP
Thoughts to ponder that could change our current situation in COVID-19 times:
- THINK LIKE AMAZON: Drone delivery for everything. Yeah!
- 401K FEARS: Breathe in peace and breathe out harmony … and just don’t look for a while!
- WASTE NOT, WANT NOT: Don’t buy 10 cartons of eggs if you can only use one. Share, please!
- CHILL OUT: Remember Henny Penny? The sky is NOT falling but people freaking out is making the markets tumble.
- ONLINE A GO-GO: Schools and universities forced to go completely online means a fresh crop of finely-tuned digital-age employees will be ready to work in the coming years!
- BE WELL: If you take your vitamins and exercise regularly maybe you wouldn’t be as stressed about standing within 6 feet of another person.
- I’LL VOTE FOR THAT: The first presidential candidate who does a toilet paper direct mailer may just win the election!
Take the COVID-19 Challenge
Have unused travel funds? Perhaps you would have spent $500 (or more) to make a trip to the Permian Basin for meetings but your plans got squashed. Consider reinvesting this money in another new business effort. Here are two ways to make your money work for you with a small spend. Take the challenge, jump in and see what happens.
- For just $200 you could target who you’d like to reach via LinkedIn advertising – boosted posts and direct emails are great options. Create an article, video, whitepaper, presentation or post to share and target by industry, location, specific company or job title to stretch your spend and hyper focus your effort.
- Pick a set of keywords that can be linked to you in search and select a corresponding landing page to launch a paid search campaign via Google AdWords. You can target specific keywords and phrases, geography, time and days of the week.