This is an unusual time. The coronavirus has changed our personal lives, our work lives and the lives of almost everyone, around the world. March and April 2020 will be remembered for the next hundred years, if not longer.

Businesses are in shock. While some are obviously suffering, others are near collapse under the weight of a huge upturn in sales.

What is your situation? Have you got a handle on where you are now and where the business will be in 3 and 6 months.

If you are still working and have money coming in now, should your strategy be to look ahead three/six/twelve months and work out what you need to do now to make sure you have work and money coming in then?

If you are in one of the industries that are thriving right now (or perhaps better put as getting lots of sales right now), is it inventory you need to focus on and for marketing, what do you need to think about to make sure you keep getting sales longer term?

If your sales have dried up or you hadn't had time to build them up before the world locked down, do you need to focus your efforts on protecting the brand awareness you had and building it up so potential customers know that you exist?

It is tempting to retreat at the moment, especially if you are at home, rather than in the office and if you have children at home, it is especially easy to deal with today's tasks and not think ahead.

We aren't sure what 'ahead' with look like, are we?

Although nothing is certain now, nothing is ever certain. What we do know is that 'out of sight, out of mind' is fairly true now and under more normal conditions,

Do you want your potential customers to remember you when they need/want you?

Small businesses start with zero brand awareness. No-one outside your immediately family has any idea who you are or what you do. You may be at the bottom but the only way it up, right :)  What we do is start to tell our own network what we do and then spread it outwards from there.

Usually, as long as you keep up the effort, the awareness of your business - your brand - will grow.

Do this now. If you have been in business for years or just for weeks, treat your brand as an unknown fledgling and help it grow.

1. Pick a couple of tactics (not too many because you need to keep them up and use them over and over again).

2. Choose some key messages that are not irrelevant now (between five and ten work)

3. Use a couple of channels - email definitely and then perhaps one or two social media channels - and repeatedly send out your messages. Over and over again.

4. Send out the messages again. Seriously. If you haven't told people the same thing twenty times (that is each key message 20 times...) over the next 3-4 months, tell them it again until you have.

But I haven't got time for that!

Do what you can. Every little helps (to steal Tesco's motto).

But my audience will get fed up if I do that!

Only if they see it twenty times. Which they won't. If you send the exact same email out, some will get annoyed, so rewrite it.

You've seen your social media post reach rate, right? (If you don't know what we are talking about, please get in touch with us here.) If you have 200 followers, each individual post might reach 40 people. Of those 40 people, 20 scrolled past without noticing it. 20 will have noticed it but 19 will have forgotten it 5 seconds later.

Sorry to be so blunt but if you want people to get your message, you have to show it to them over and over and over again.

They aren't looking for it.

Our marketing agency, Write in Danderyd, builds and runs all sorts of marketing tactics for the smallest of businesses across the world.

Check out their latest post about ensuring your clients and potential clients don't forget you right now:

What to do for your business now

If your website and social media profiles are failing to bring in new business to you, then our social media and content marketing coaching group may be just what you need. We'll work together to get your social media and content marketing set up, running and bringing in clients. We will talk through the theory and then spend time together working on YOUR website and social media. Here are five great reasons why you should join our social media and content marketing coaching group in the autumn.

1. We set some goals, look at who you are targeting, what strategy is needed and the tactics to achieve those goals. We will work through the theories of content and social media marketing and then get started with a practical content marketing exercises that you can use immediately.
2. We focus on your website, including the all-important SEO of your content and work on it to produce content that you can post.
3. We analyse your social media, work through the theory and then start to apply it to your social media profiles.  You should see some immediate results from the sharing and engaging.
4. We’ll link everything we have done with email marketing, which makes your marketing much more effective (and efficient!). We'll get you set up with an RSS feed, build an email campaign, set up a lead form and then look at the results to understand what happens when you post some content on your website.
5. We give you everything you need to market and get those clients contacting you.

Our team is passionately committed towards empowering entrepreneurs to further grow their businesses and this coaching group is an ideal way to get your business growing.

You can expect:

• a full understanding of the process of content marketing and how it works
• what social media marketing needs to convert followers into potential clients
• a very practical programme working directly on YOUR website and YOUR social media profiles
• practical actions you can take immediately
• a chance to talk through through the techniques, with your goal in mind
• masses of support from us and from the group
• a six-month plan so you know exactly what to do, when and how.

Click here for details and to join our Social Media and Content Marketing Coaching Group.

Us entrepreneurs tend to feel the need (or like!) to independently run our businesses but going at it alone isn’t always easy and can sometimes be down-right difficult – and lonely.

A second opinion - preferably an experienced and unbiased one – can be truly helpful in ensuring you and your business reach your full potential. Working with us can make the difference between making it and…err…not making it.

We have an excellent track record of helping very small businesses to get on track to success. You tell us all about your business, we talk through what you want and need and then we research, think, discuss, plan and put together key actions. You implement the actions and get the business results you want. If you need it, we can also provide support and marketing services. We get you on track to grow your business with a plan that you action yourself.

Our first package – GET GROWING PLUS - involves:

• A survey that you take online.  This survey gives us all the essential information we need to fully analyse your business and marketing so far.
  
  
• After you have completed the survey, we'll go through all the information and come up with questions that we talk through with you during a 1.5 hour meeting. We'll get to the root of the challenges your business faces.
  
  
• After our meeting, we will work very hard to develop an action report for you. It will include strategic and operational actions to solve your business challenge and show you how to get more clients. 
  
  
• We then take 20 minutes on the phone with you to answer any questions you might have about the action report and supply you with all the guides and tools you need to complete the actions easily.

Find out more about this package and our bigger packages here.

Why work with us?

As a start-up entrepreneur and seasoned business owner, a business coach from whom you receive advice and shortcuts can be invaluable. This means that we can give you the tools and the tricks that have been tried, used and succeeded with and, more importantly, point out the things we know don’t work or cost too much to be worth the money.

We provide an outside, expert perspective which can be a sounding board for your ideas and help you compare and decide which ideas to use. There might be sticking points that you need to overcome in your business and we provide help to create a change and overall help you with growing your business. As a business coach our job isn’t to help you go out of your comfort zone but to help you feel comfortable with the actions you take.

From us, you will get the attention you need from someone who has learnt about your business from the inside out. Getting coaching from us here at My Own Marketing Coach should develop your self-confidence – you’ll be sure about what you are doing to grow your business and will know why you are doing each thing.

We’re probably not the first to tell you that starting your own business can bruise your ego – there are so many knocks and bumps along the way. The biggest pro of using us is that you always have someone in your corner, to support you and help you achieve your goals. You will become more productive as we maximise your potential, reduce the barriers and unlock a productivity you might not know is inside you!

Finally, the best benefit is that we can help you make more money. A good business coach will help you in your business because every good coach has a process and, in our case, this means helping you to find your marketing strategy, hone it and get it bring in more business for you.
We’ll be here with you to help you grow your business into the business you want.
 
Find out more about our coaching services and how we can help you here.

We hear from so many small businesses that they have amazing products and services and now just need people to buy them. With limited budgets, paying a marketing agency or sales staff can be out of the question so we coach you to help grow your small business into the business you want.

We have three levels of coaching packages so you don't need to commit to regular coaching (though you can do that too!). Check them all out here.