The measures put in place due to the COVID-19 pandemic highlight just how important it is to stay in touch with your audience. Especially now that most of us are isolating at home!
With in-person contact being halted to a minimum maintaining brand awareness can be difficult when no-one is actually going out! Without in-person meetings, switching to a digital presence is the logical choice. But is it actually worth all the hassle? Surely your clients will remember you when this all goes back to normal?
These are perfectly viable questions but the short answer is; not necessarily.
The digital competition is rising and you need to stay in front!
Consistent contact is what keeps your brand alive
Whilst you’re closed or adapting your business you need to let your clients and customers know what is going on. Never assume they have seen an email or seen the sign on your door, because you’d be surprised what gets missed!
If your existing clients and customers don’t know you’re still operating in some capacity they’ll look elsewhere, and it’ll be a lot harder to get them back again.
But it’s not just about reaching out once or twice, consistency is key when it comes to keeping contact right now! Particularly when you’re part of an industry that relies so heavily on in-person contact. Here’s why…
Consistency in communication boosts brand awareness
Chances are, with so many things going on, there wasn’t much time left to even think about your branding and brand awareness with your new pivot. When you have your hands full with switching to digital and changing your business model, it’s easy to lose track of your original message, aesthetic and branding!
But consistency is one of the most important things to focus on right now, because it will keep you connected to your current customers whilst cultivating brand awareness for new potential clients too!
And with so many health and wellness businesses trying to fit their offer into the online world, brand awareness now also determines how well you’ll bounce back to your physical location as well.
So, how do you put this into practice?
When it comes to changing your offer or pivoting your business, the right communication structure is key! Which leads us to the three pillars of quality communication you need to be doing to have your brand awareness on point: Communicate consistently, communicate well, and communicate often.
#1 Communicate consistently
It’s no wonder consistency is such a crucial part of brand awareness – when you’re consistent in your image and communication, your audience will have an easier time recognising and remembering you, and ultimately, trusting you.
Consistency helps you create your brand’s personality and nurture your leads as well as:
- Give your potential new clients a taste of what to expect: your personality, tone, voice, what you do, so that they can fall in love with you.
- Allows you to meet your lead’s next expectations with the same colours, logo, tone, and voice in upcoming communication which is essential for nurturing and building loyalty
To put this into perspective, let’s say you are using yellow and orange tones combined with a Lato font, and a warm voice and inspirational tone – every time your audience see this combination, they will know who’s posting and writing to them. So if you miss one of these key features of your branding, they aren’t recognising you.
This consistency in your branding is what creates lasting brand awareness.
And it’s not just aesthetics. Do you know what influences email open rates the most? According to DMA’s Consumer email tracker, 72% of consumers said it’s recognising the brand!
So if you change your voice every week, chances are you’ll get lower open rates on your emails, less engagement on your social posts, and fewer conversions all round! See, being yourself really does pay off!
#2 Communicate well
Coming across as too ‘salesy’ is one of the biggest issues when you’re trying to actively nurture your leads. Particularly in the current climate.
And it’s a fine line between how you prioritise offering value versus trying to actively sell your services.
You can’t expect that your leads will buy from you as soon as they stumble upon your brand. In fact, if you actively communicate sales from the get-go, your leads will be less inclined to purchase anything from you. After all, they don’t know you yet.
Trust is the ultimate goal
Your customers and leads will be more satisfied with you if you focus on offering them value instead of being pushy and trying to get them to buy. So make sure you build that trust first.
The MarketingSherpa’s report shows that satisfied customers are much more likely to continue purchasing your services and products when compared to unsatisfied customers (66% vs. 8%).
So instead of selling as your main focus, work hard on providing value in your communication and emails. Share often and freely!
Your social media posts and blog content should be full of topics that are relevant to your audience – from addressing pain points to guides, tips and tricks, and latest developments in the industry – keep content interesting for them.
I know it sounds counterintuitive to focus on sharing information for free instead of trying to sell because, of course, you want to get new clients and earn, but put yourself in your client’s shoes!
If you were looking for a health and wellness professional and found an interesting one, only to realise they are keeping most of the information behind a paywall, what’s your first thought? They don’t really care, they just want money.
With these types of practices, any warm leads you might have had will turn ice-cold in a second. But if they get value without having to commit and pay, the more likely they are to actually commit. That’s how lead nurturing works.
That’s why consistently communicating value is going to pay off for your brand long term. Give priority to your audiences’ interests and you’ll earn their trust and have loyal clients.
#3 Communicate often
Consistent communication and value are not the only things that are important for the success in nurturing leads and trust.
The tricky part is knowing how much communication is enough. You have to figure out the right amount of communication and frequency for your emails to be successful.
It’s easy to go overboard with your posts and emails, or communicate too little – whichever way you go, the trust could crumble away. You can have the highest-quality content that provides lots of value, but users will lose interest if you contact them too much (known as spamming them.)
- How many posts per day should you publish on social media?
- Is daily posting even good?
- How about emails? How often should you be sending newsletters to your subscribers?
MarketingSherpa’s study also reveals that 26% of users will hit the unsubscribe button because they get too many emails.
User preferences can give you a good hint here because only around 15% of people want emails daily but an overwhelming majority lean toward far fewer communications like once a month!
Don’t fall into the trap of trying to find a magic formula that works for all of your subscribers. The better way to approach this is to give them a choice.
When they subscribe to your newsletter, let them choose the frequency they prefer (and make sure they can change their preferences later on). If they find daily is too much, offer them weekly emails. For those who’d like less frequent newsletters, have a monthly digest option.
But the key point here in your communication frequency whatever you pick is: consistency!
Whatever you choose to set up with your audience, stick to it. It’s not just about emails, it’s social media as well. If you start a challenge which requires posting regularly stick it through to the end. How do you expect your audience to get involved and commit if you’re not consistent?!
Take time to work on your communication structure
Now is the time when our clients need us more than ever, so it’s important you let them know you are there for them and they can reach you easily, even if you can’t meet in person right now.
If you have too much on your plate at this time, juggling between digitising your services and staying consistent across all platforms you use to communicate with your clients, then pick one or two of your audience’s preferred channels and consistently stick with them! It’s better to be present and consistent on fewer channels than drop the ball on all of them and lose the benefits of engagement!
If you need help pivoting your brand and making sure you’re staying true to your voice as you switch up your business get in touch with me today and I’ll see if I can help stay engaged even in these difficult time.
Leave a Reply