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

For those of you who use Instagram for your businesses, do you feel your effort is delivering potential new clients to you or is nothing much happening?

It is absolutely possible to use Instagram to build sales but you must spend your energy on the right things. You might think that is posting great photos every day but, for most businesses, that isn't what you should be doing.

Give help where people ask for it but make sure you are talking on places that your potential clients are operating on. If you are a local business, stick very definitely to local sites.