How can companies cope with the COVID-19 pandemic?

Since the early stages of confinement, it has been hard for companies to keep up. Some employees have to work from home and others still go to work by taking extreme precautions. But what can companies do during this crisis, to continue to market themselves and avoid letting go of valuable market share to their competitors? How can they survive and most importantly, how will they survive following the crisis? Right now, e-commerce websites have the possibility to climb to the top of Google search results, following search engine optimization or the use of Google Ads, both of which increase a companies’ visibility in search engines. Creating the perfect website, including optimizing page speed, usability, visibility and conversions, is what most companies should start to focus on in order to gain as many quality customers as possible. But what else can business owners leverage?

How do companies and customers react during a crisis?

Each company copes with the crisis in its own way. So far, four strategies have been seen by analysts:

  • Prevention: Mostly cost cutting, which is not ideal. It is all about loss-minimization. Do more with less, which often lowers the quality of your product or service, and customer satisfaction often dips, even for e-commerce websites.
  • Promotion: Ignoring the crisis and early warning signs. Companies in this category add features when customers desire greater value. Generally they use Google ads or Facebook ads to increase their presence throughout the market.
  • Pragmatic: Prevention is key. These companies tend to rely heavily on reducing the number of employees to save money, which generally has repercussions later on, including loss of trained and reliable staff, and the cost of turnover associated with it.
  • Progressive: Near-term changes that reduce costs now and after demand returns (unlike layoffs).

But companies are not the only ones to adapt differently. Consumers have their own way of coping too. Here are the four categories:

  • Cautious: Customers reduce, delay or eliminate spending. And that includes every social category.
  • Patient: Buyers tend to economize across all areas. They are seeking deals, are known as bargain-hunters, and are being cautious.
  • Unbothered: Wealthy customers don’t change their habits and keep spending money, even more sometimes than usual.
  • Day by day: People are usually unconcerned about savings, though they may delay major purchases.

What should companies really do?

In adversity, we always make decisions that seem right in the moment, but we generally regret them when the crisis is over. It is very important that companies think carefully about what to do during this period of confinement. And what better choice than developing their social media followship and e-commerce websites? It is the perfect time because a lot of people spend time on these websites and social media pages during the confinement period, and having the perfect Facebook ads and Google ads for your company helps establish you as a market leader. Once business opens up and everything goes back to normal, your brand retention and awareness will have skyrocketed, and you’ll have a fully engaged community that you can market to.

Good communication and marketing are what makes you more visible online, and it is also what will help you once things return to normalcy. You have to create the website that your company deserves. For more efficiency, you should contact the best local SEO expert in Montreal to help you improve your website. They will know how to handle this based on the industry you are in.

However, if your company has no presence online whatsoever, you can take advantage of this actual context. Create a website, develop your online presence, and sell your products or services. Nowadays, people are on the internet and social media most of the time. The perfect Facebook ad or Google ad placed at the right spot can give you a lot of potential clients; in fact, you can even capture leads directly from social media without even having a website. With some adjustments, your e-commerce website will be among the best.

What should companies avoid?

During a crisis, companies have to face reality and try to save as much money as possible. At first, it can be seen as a good thing, but when everything goes back to normal, some mistakes hurt more than expected.

For example, as companies can’t work with a full staff, some employees are being laid off to save some money. Well, this is the first mistake. Companies must, insofar as possible, keep their employees to be ready to roll as soon as everything is back to normal. Trying to prepare for a recovery in the midst of a crisis is sometimes a luxury that companies can’t afford. If people are laid off, fewer resources remain available.

Another common mistake is when companies reduce their presence online because they think that it will be less impactful, while business is slow.

Online activity has never been higher than it is currently. Furthermore, as there is slightly less competition during a downturn, your cost-per-click will be cheaper, and it will be easier to climb up in the organic search engine results pages (SERPs). By not doing proper marketing for your e-commerce website, you can lose a lot of potential clients! All you need is the best SEO, which can be implemented by the best local SEO expert in Montreal. These experts will help you with advertising, which plays an important role for any e-commerce site. However, social media is one of the quickest and most affordable ways to direct traffic to your website. Facebook ads and Google ads will help you increase your sales. Moreover, the CPC (Cost per click for online advertising) is less expensive, and SEO is easier because the competition is less active online.

Here is a quotation worth remembering: “Trim some fat by working out more, don’t cut back on protein or energy to fuel the growth of tougher and leaner machinery. In other words, in times of crisis, smart companies use data and optimize more than ever, not less.”

If companies want to be considered progressive, they have to stay close to the customer’s needs. After all, the customer ultimately determines whether a company will become powerful or not. It is all about adaptation. Everything changes – especially our habits. Adaptation is key to promote and sell according to the time we live in now.

So, that is everything you need to know. We hope that this article has been useful to you. It is now up to you to do what’s best for your company.