COVID-19 has been devastating to millions of businesses across the globe. This blog is going to walk you through updating your website to take the virus into account. Your customers expect to know of any changes that have been made to your business operations, and your online presence including website and social media is a great place to display this information.
Creating a COVID-19 update page is a great way to keep your customers posted. This page can be constantly updated and should have all the information about your business regarding coronavirus. This can include whether masks are required, any limits on capacity, and updated business hours.
A banner on your homepage can also be very useful. It will alert your customers that there is new information they haven’t seen yet. This banner can be a URL to a coronavirus page or section on your website.
Providing a brief overview of the information that is important to your customers on your home page is a good idea. This section can have your new daily hours and any new services or promotions you are now offering such as free delivery, curbside pickup, etc. However, be careful not to overdo references to the virus as it can annoy people. It’s best to keep your website focused as it was but to make it easy for people to find the updates that have occurred if they want that information.
With face to face gatherings being limited throughout the country, using online tools to communicate with your customers is a great way to adjust to the situation.
One method that is simple and easy to is is having a contact form page on your website (which you should already have hopefully!). Your customers can enter their name, email and a message which automatically gets emailed to you after the form is submitted. You can then respond and start a conversation with them.
Although contact forms are useful, they aren’t the only way to get into contact with your customers. You can have a banner saying contact us using this email or phone number. Starting a text message conversation with a customer can be very useful for multiple reasons. For one, it’s easier for the customer to text you than to email you. Also, texts can be viewed as more friendly which can improve your relationship with your customers.
If you are a yoga instructor or a psychiatrist and your entire business depends on face-to-face interaction and conversation, this pandemic has probably made it difficult to keep your customers. A video call is a great way to speak to your customers as if they are with you at that moment. Going to the yoga example, if you have headphones or earbuds, you can walk around and do stretches while demonstrating them to your students. Video calling has lots of advantages and is a great way to improve business without getting too close to people.
Even businesses not completely reliant upon face to face interaction could make use of it. For example, Harry Glinberg Jewelers offers its customers the ability to contact them via a Zoom consultation video call. This allows them to provide their expertise and knowledge to customers who may not be comfortable visiting the physical location.
Ad campaigns are important because they give your customer a sense of what your company does and how your company can help them. If your company is running ads that were created before the pandemic, you might get fewer clicks due to changes in the market.
For example, someone who owns a restaurant may run ads showing how amazing it is to eat in the restaurant. But with coronavirus, this restaurant has switched everything to accommodate delivery. This restaurant’s ads need to be updated to show quick and easy delivery.
If your website has an online store that needs improvement, now is the time - more than ever - to improve it. Almost every business has lost a chunk of in-store sales. But companies that sell online products or online services can make up for this lost business. People are going to buy online more than ever before and it’s important that your products or services are easy to buy.
According to statista.com, since the start of this pandemic, there has been a 30% increase in household items being sold online. If you can sell your products online and are not currently doing so, you’re missing out on major business.
If you are interested in starting an ECommerce Business, contact us today and schedule an overview call to discuss your project!
