Essential Marketing Tips for COVID-19
Businesses of all sizes have had to shift their marketing efforts because of COVID-19. Small businesses in particular have had an especially hard time due to limited resources. We were lucky enough to sit down with a small business marketing expert, and hear her advice first-hand. So if you’ve been wondering what marketing tips for small businesses are available, you’ve come to the right place.
The Expert from Power Move Marketing
Hailey Brooke Mcfadden is the owner and founder of Power Move Marketing. She graduated from The Wake Forest School of Business where she received a Masters of Science in Management after completing her Bachelor of Arts in Communication with a Minor in Film Studies.
“Many companies have forgotten they sell to actual people. Humans care about the entire experience, not just the marketing or sales or service. To really win in the modern age, you must solve for humans.” — Dharmesh Shah, CTO & Co-Founder, HubSpot
Hailey started Power Move Marketing because after playing four years of D1 volleyball, she needed a way to continue to be competitive. She had already begun private consulting for several companies while still in graduate school and had found a lot of success doing it. Some of her clients suggested that she start a marketing company since her work had outperformed their previous marketing companies’ efforts.
Working with Small Businesses
Hailey’s first company that she started to do marketing for was a jewelry company. Then soon after, an apparel company. She eventually went on to helping mattress companies, storage companies, CBD businesses, and more.
When she first started working with the aforementioned jewelry company, she noticed they were hemorrhaging money to a marketing agency. Upon further digging, this company was just running advertisements for them, such as Facebook ads. The ROAS, (return on ad spend), was terrible.
Hailey felt she could get a better return doing it on her own, and that’s exactly what happened. And then it turned into photoshoots that helped curate Instagram, email marketing, and more. She learned that having everything cohesive — ads are cohesive with Instagram, cohesive with emails — it makes a much more customer-friendly experience.
Hailey learned that there weren’t many companies that were doing this. If you’re an ad company, you’re an ad company, and you’re not doing any creative. They might not spend a lot of time getting to know your brand.
“I remember they wanted to do an ad with trash bags. And I was like, ‘Don’t you think people are going to think the jewelry is trash if you do that?’ Just, really basic stuff that I felt they were missing out on. And so with PMM, I really get to hone in on my clients, really get to know them well.”
Hailey and her team have weekly calls — sometimes daily — with many clients.
Marketing Tips for Small Business
When COVID-19 started, many businesses started pausing their ad and marketing spending. Hailey told some of her clients, “I just don’t think you should cut your ad spend. I really actually think people are going to still be shopping online.” She didn’t think her e-commerce clients would take a major hit and felt it was worth continuing to push forward with marketing.
For large brands with large budgets for marketing and advertising, one hundred dollars is just a drop in the bucket. But for entrepreneurs and small business owners, every dollar counts — and investments need to pay off in real and immediate ROI. – entrepreneur.com
Ecommerce actually went up, which was where Hailey thought it was going to go. She urged one of her clients to push their marketing, really pave the way and get them more market share. With a lot of people cutting down, it was a great time to actually expand. In the company where she worked on the expansion, they hit their highest month in the month of March — ever. And that was their very first month of profiting.
Now, Hailey warns this wouldn’t work with every business, but that COVID-19 doesn’t necessarily mean loss of profits. She’s noticed that many small businesses haven’t done a great job communicating with their customer base.
“You need to be communicating with your clients because customers want to help you. People feel for small businesses now. People feel for local businesses now. Reach out, use your resources, apply for loans, do what you need to do, but definitely tell your customers if you’re struggling.”