Ways You Can Reach Your Market in 2020

In a time where concerns about a global pandemic are shutting down schools, offices, stores, and restaurants, it can be tough for small businesses to keep themselves afloat amidst a myriad of concerns. We’ve talked about ‘How to Support Employee Mental Health and Wellness’ and how employers can talk care of their staff in times of crisis, but in this volatile period small companies can be especially vulnerable. Social distancing efforts are good for community health, but they can put a strain on businesses and the economy. It’s more important than ever that companies think out of the box when it comes to approaching their markets.

Luckily, there are a variety of tools available to businesses today that can help them forge connections with customers without compromising health and safety. For example, maintaining an online presence during the quarantine period can keep your company in the minds of consumers. Big Four accounting firm KPMG found that 55% of people will search online for reviews and recommendations before making a purchase, so making use of the digital sphere to expand your reach is paramount to keeping sales up. There are tons of ways you can use this period to reach your market; so, we’ve put together four more below.

 Shoppable Posts

In recent years, social media has become much more than just a place to connect with friends – it’s also become an important ecommerce platform for many small businesses. Impact recommends that businesses make use of shoppable tags and expand their use of Instagram beyond simple online advertising and move into ecommerce. As one of the fastest growing social media platforms, Instagram allows companies the opportunity to connect with over 1 billion active monthly users — far more than a regular advertising campaign could offer.

Augmented Reality

Experts are predicting that countries may have to continue social distancing for weeks, if not months, and that can take a hit on retail companies that rely on in-store purchases. Luckily, technology offers opportunities for businesses to make up for it. Augmented reality is a quickly growing field that allows for customers to “try out” and “look at” store items from the comfort of their own homes. Swedish furniture giant Ikea, for instance, recently launched an augmented reality app that allowed customers to see how their furniture would fit into their own homes. Making use of creative solutions like this will help keep your brand afloat as consumer habits begin to change.

Direct Mail Marketing

While digital marketing is fast, easy, and relatively affordable, it comes with a downside. Customers tend to lean towards personalized experiences, and inboxes full of promotional emails could lead to accelerated ad fatigue. Direct mail marketing brings the marketing experience into customer’s homes — literally and figuratively. Direct mail has seen a sort of renaissance in the past couple of years, and boasts a relatively high ROI when compared with other strategies. Triadex Services’ list of top industries that can benefit from direct mail includes restaurants, services, and “big decisions” like jewelry, property, and vehicles.

Postalytics is one of the best direct mail automation platform that helps smart marketers easily create, send, and measure the performance of their direct mail campaigns–without the hassle of manually entering data. The Postalytics platform integrates with your CRM system and mailing list provider to automate some of the most time-consuming parts of managing a campaign, such as adding addresses to a list and generating personalized content.

Live Video

The quarantine period will see more people relying on online media and services than ever before, so now would be a great opportunity to make the most of that screen time. Tubular Insights has found that customers are more likely to spend more time watching live videos than videos on demand, sometimes reaching twice the number of watching time than VOD. Live videos are also likely to result in more engagement from customers through comments or react buttons, which makes it especially attractive for businesses who want to forge more personal relationships with their market.