Marketing & Staying Relevant in the time of COVID
We are all about staying visible. You know us – visuals first! Corporate headshot photography rules!
And since it is our job to keep your professional headshots up to date, we spend a lot of time researching and thinking about how to stay current, especially during these unusual times...
We thought this would be a good follow up to our recent post on Coronavirus and how/when the world is getting back together. Here we are sharing our findings about staying relevant, active and visible during COVID19. Now is no time to go radio silent. It is time to be present and visible in a way that resonates with people that are going through these challenges.
Our New York business photographers are on the quiet side these days, but that doesn't mean we are not working furiously to stay connected with the world. These are some ideas that we have learned from our colleagues and trusted sources that we thought we would share.
Look at your Content and Outreach Strategies
It is unlikely that your outreach strategies pre-Coronavirus are perfectly applicable to today's climate. But maybe they are not so completely off-base. Take a good look at what your goals were. Do you just need a little adjusting or do you truly need to revamp the program?
Are you looking to engage new customers? Do you want to educate the world about a new service? Are you looking for better website traffic? Would you like to build brand awareness?
These are all valid goals, even during a pandemic. Stay away from the hard sell and do some tweaking on language and visuals to make them relevant for the current times. Adjust the schedule and then move forward with your plan with the appropriate objectives and outcome goals.
For us, we are New York headshot photographers that had some great relationships pre-covid. We truly believe that our clients still want to work with us so our goal is to stay connected. This brings us to the next thought.
Strengthen Your Relationship With Your Customers
Now is not the time for the hard sell. It is the time to stay close to your customers in a relationship building kind of way.
This downturn is weird in that most of our relationships with our clients were very good prior to Coronavirus. Our business was on repeat with many of them (in a good way) and everyone was looking to have us back to shoot corporate headshots for the next time, next conference, next client appreciation event.
It is likely that the same is true for other companies. If you were doing good work, your clients were not likely looking to drop you as a vendor.
In a way this positions you well. If you are like us, your clients are cheering for you. They want our Washington DC corporate headshot photographers or New York executive portrait photographers back and are happy to continue that relationship. So do just that! Continue the relationship. Maintain communication. Keep reaching out to see how things are going. Offer them the help you can or just brighten their day with a quick check in to make sure they are doing well. After all, there is a pandemic going on and a quick, personal email checking in to make sure they are healthy and coping with quarantine-like conditions cannot hurt. It's not intrusive. It's nice.
Being Helpful
Overwhelmingly, the theme in marketing today is this: Be helpful. This can mean a lot of different things. It is up to you to look at your company and think about what you do that applies and resonates with this value.
Think about what you do that can make it easier for people to get through the pandemic. This can be a service or product you offer. Make sure to stay flexible and open to new things. It can be about sharing content that can help your companies move past an obstacle. It can mean sharing something you have learned and has helped you through this pandemic. You know your audience, so figure out how you can be helpful to that group.
The Booth is a business-to-business New York headshot photography company so we have been thinking about what we do or know that can be helpful to that kind of client. There are fewer opportunities to work directly onsite and photograph corporate headshot photography. So, what have we learned through this pandemic that we can share? How can we be a guide for other companies? Our businesses are all so different, with different products and expertise but so much of what we do, process-wise, is the same. Hearing from others on how they tackled an issue can get us through our version of that issue so much faster so we hope to do the same for others.
Share your expertise. In the last several months we have relied heavily on businesses with different expertise to help us understand how to navigate different elements on the pandemic. One particular area was looking at the PPP and other government support programs. Bookkeepers and accountants in our community shared what they knew and helped us avoid mistakes that would have delayed or made it impossible to get funding. Not only am I grateful for their help via Zoom calls, webinars and newsletters, I now know that they are truly experts in what they do. Guess who we will be recommending the next time a business needs accounting or bookkeeping help?
Maybe your way of being helpful is to highlight other businesses. If you don't have a service or product that can help people get through the pandemic, think about clients or business peers that can. Pay them a compliment and help the world at the same time by recommending their service. Give specific examples of how they helped you or how they can be a good resource right now. Make sure you add a link to their website and/or let people know how to reach them.
Let Your Team Know What Is Happening!
This is a given if you are a company that works together in an office with departments and roles. Chances are you have regular meetings and communication built into your organizational structure. But it is always good to think about how you can share your plan with staff in less obvious roles. If you don't see certain people on the regular you might forget the value of keeping them in the loop.
We are a photography company centralized in New York but with staff everywhere throughout the country. We almost never work in an office together with our entire team. Our New York business photographers are there on jobs and we are in constant communication, but when we speak with them, it is almost always about a specific project. It is rarely to discuss overall company objectives. One of the things that we have to work hard on is keeping everyone in the loop.
But we know that this idea of keeping everyone in the loop is important. For us, the priority is that our photographers have to be skilled and take good photos. They also have to be customer service representatives. Every client comes through our New York photography studio, but it is our photographers that are interacting with the clients on a job. Even though they are not out shooting so much right now, we think it's important that they know what our plan, as a company, is right now. You never know who our team is coming into contact with in the real world. Should they be in a position to speak with one of our clients, or even a potential client, we want them to have the knowledge they need to be a good representative of the company.
Focus on Digital
I know, I know. This sounds like a dumb and obvious suggestion now and, really, for the last 10 years. But as a company that focuses on creative ways to reach people, and because I keep reading about it, I figure I will pass the obvious along. There is no use sending a mailer to 1000 offices when 90% of them are working from home. Unless you have a carefully considered mailer or package that you know how to get to people, stay focused on digital.
Also, times of change are a great time to look at your digital marketing efforts and see what has been effective. Look at what is getting traction and what channels are the most effective. Think about what channels you might not be utilizing that you could leverage. This, of course, will align with your overall marketing strategy that we focused on earlier.
Summary
This is what we are learning now and we will continue to take opportunities to read and listen. We take these ideas to heart and will continue to tell the world about where we are with our professional portraits and business photography. When the time is right, we will still be well-connected with the community. Hopefully it will help for an easier transition back to our regular projects and clients.
