During Quarantine, Your Focus Should Be on Your Brand Building Efforts

As service providers find themselves unable to enforce their full practice because of COVID-19, businesses are between a rock and a hard place. Do they do their best to operate as close to normal as possible despite the difficulties or do they let themselves fall at the hands of economic uncertainty and potential bankruptcy? Well, as a digital business operation, let us tell you that there are ways in which you can continue to build on your business during these times. If you want to make sure that you commercially survive this quarantine and come out of it still strong as a business, you will need to shift your focus to your brand building efforts. Good branding practices will help you remain in your customers’ minds. Yes, even if you are not able to commercially operate to your full capacities.

Brand Building is as Old as Time

Branding goes back thousands of years. The concept goes all the way back to ancient Egypt. Back then, livestock would be branded with a specific symbol that would declare ownership and prevent theft. This seemingly refers solely to the other definition of branding and not the commercial one. However, the two are more closely related than you think. After all, we are talking about creating an instantly recognizable symbol with both social and commercial connotations. As a business owner, that should always be your main goal: to inhabit a specific niche in your audience’s consciousness that emotionally moves them to make decisions in your favor. That’s just a fancy way of saying that you need to build a positive and effective relationship with your customers.

Customer Relationships

One of the pillars of brand building, particularly in the age of email, social media, and online shopping, is the communication between you and your audience. For centuries, it was vital for a business owner to build a good rapport with their customers in order to encourage them to return. That hasn’t changed. Part of developing that relationship between the service provider and their customer nowadays is exploring how to effectively perform outreach. There are countless different brands, businesses, and companies competing for your audience’s attention. You are going to need to stand out and establish a good relationship firsthand if you really wish to get their attention.

Maintaining Your Relationship With Your Customers

If you don’t already have a relationship or an audience, then building on it while unable to provide your services is going to be quite challenging. You can’t exactly convince people to trust your work when you can’t perform it for them. However, if you already have an audience, you can focus on keeping them engaged with your brand and your business. Particularly while you are unable to maintain regular operations. Think about what gyms are doing right now. It’s not safe to go to a gym right now. There are a lot of different people touching the same surfaces, after all. This means that gyms and fitness centers are being presented with the challenge of keeping their base engaged. How are they managing to do so?

Well, plenty of gyms are using online tools available to them to provide a diluted version of their regular services. Trainers are sharing tips on how to work out at home, doing live routines on social media, and encouraging participation from regular customers. Note that this would never be enough o keep a gym running under regular circumstances. However, the actual product is not available. The fact that the business is making an effort to maintain both a semblance of their services and a sense of normalcy means something to the audience. This gesture of commercial goodwill demonstrates selfless care and effort and it will be a key brand building strategy.

Planning Your Own Brand Building Strategy

So how should you approach this? How do you decide on a way to engage with your audience past your ability to provide your services? Think of what you do for your customers. What do you give your audience? This goes beyond the physical product or service. Instead, think of the need that your business fulfills. If you provide music lessons, you are satisfying the need for artistic expression. If you provide business consultations, you satisfy the need for commercial guidance. Once you’ve isolated the specific need you help address you can determine how you can continue to do so while unable to supply your regular services.

It’s important that you think outside the box here. These are not normal times and there are many tools available at your disposal. We are not even sure of how long it will take for things to go back to normal. The whole situation will probably ebb and flow for an undetermined period of time. You need to start thinking about how to digitally reach your customers during these times of social distancing. Only in finding solutions will you be able to keep your brand building efforts alive throughout this time. The effort will go a long way and so will having your audience feel like you were there for them during these uncertain times.

Develop Your Brand Professionally

There are a lot of different methods and practices that come into brand building. After all, we live in a multimedia world, which means that your efforts require a multimedia approach. A professional website, advertising across platforms, social media presence, and customer relationship management will all be vital in order to build your brand. At Website Depot, we are dedicated to providing you with the necessary tools, guidance, and expertise needed for quality brand building and digital marketing. We are here to help you through this. Just give us a call at (888) 477-9540 or fill out the contact form on our website.