Covid-19 in Thailand: 5 Marketing Tactics Your Business Can Use Right Now
As the coronavirus (Covid-19) situation has put cities across Thailand on partial lockdown, businesses of all types are feeling its impact. Although right now, the idea of marketing your business may seem counterintuitive, there are still plenty of ways to provide value for your audience and generate sales during this period.
Here are a few free or low-cost tactics that businesses of all size can use right now for customer acquisition and retention.
1. Offer Home Delivery
Although the restaurant industry has been heavily affected by the Covid crisis, many are still allowed to offer take-away and home delivery (here in Bangkok at least). If you run a restaurant and haven’t already partnered with home delivery services, now is the time to do so. Make sure to let your followers know on social media that you’re open for takeaway or delivery and offer relevant and interesting promotions such as % discounts or free home delivery.
There is no reason why this wouldn’t work for retail businesses too. In fact, if you’re not already selling online, now is the time to not just think about it but to take fast action. Don’t have a website? Add a shop to your Facebook page or sell through a marketplace such as Shopee or Lazada.
If you have the budget for it, you could even run a campaign to donate all or a part of the profits to support your staff who have had their hours cut due to the Covid situation. Customers love to support ethical businesses who care about their employees, and a simple gesture like this could go a long way in terms of building relationships and improving customer loyalty.
This will work well for: restaurants, grocery stores and retailers.
2. Take Your Business Into the Digital Age
Now is the time to really think about digital transformation. Distance learning, for example, enables many teachers to continue working from home and for students to carry on learning with minimal disruption.
Think about how you could apply the distance learning concept to your own business. Are you a yoga teacher or a fitness instructor? Create an online course or a podcast. After all, with people unable to leave home, they will be looking for alternative ways to exercise, stay healthy and keep themselves occupied.
You could even offer one to one personal coaching or host live sessions for your followers on Facebook or instagram. Share your best knowledge and overdeliver on value to build and strengthen relationships. The investment you make now could return many times over, and could help you find new income streams for many years to come.
This will work well for: yoga teachers, personal trainers, business coaches, language teachers, digital marketers, life coaches, photographers.
3. Offer Discount Vouchers
Businesses based out of a physical location have been hit especially hard after entire cities have been put on lockdown. However, just because you’ve had to close up shop doesn’t mean you have to stop selling your services.
What you can do right now is to reward customer loyalty by offering discount vouchers that your customers can use towards future purchases. For example, if you’re a physical therapist you could offer a coupon for x% off purchases valid for the next 12 months. Encourage people to buy more coupons by increasing the discount amount. For example:
Buy 1 coupon, get 30% off
Buy 2 coupons, get 40% off
Buy 3 coupons, get 50% off and so on.
This shows your customers that you haven’t forgotten about them, and many people will be happy to support their local business in these uncertain economic times.
This will work well for: beauty clinics, spas, massage shops, nail bars, physical therapists.
4. Run a Competition
This is another variation of the discount coupon strategy that would work especially well for any business that uses lead generation for customer acquisition.
For example, you could run a giveaway competition on social media. Let’s say you’re a beauty clinic. You could run a competition with a chance to come in for a free beauty treatment anytime within the next 3 months.
You can collect leads (contest entries) via a Facebook lead form, a landing page or even a Messenger chatbot. The only information you need to collect is name, phone number and email address. Make sure to tell everyone entering the competition when and where you will be announcing the winners – on your Facebook page, for example.
The other thing you should do is give everyone who enters a price immediately. For instance, you could offer a 30% discount valid for the next 6 months when customers come in and use your services. This will help you build a pipeline and give your potential customers a good reason to come in and purchase from you as soon as possible.
The other huge benefit is that you can use the personal data you have collected, such as the customer email address, to stay in contact, send relevant updates about your business and make sure you stay on top of mind.
5. Create Amazing Content
Just because business is slow, it doesn’t mean that you should stop working. In fact, now is the time to take even more action.
Think about how you could use your time in the most effective way possible. Does your website need a refresh? Maybe it’s been a while since you’ve updated your blog? Think about the needs of your target market and start creating relevant content for your audience.
What problems do your current customers struggle with? Try to identify your customer pain points and use them to engage your future customers by becoming their go-to source for helpful advice.
Video content is a fantastic way to hook your audience on social media. Video allows you to break down your content into easily digestible snippets and give your brand a voice. People also love sharing videos, which makes it easy to spread your message even further.
All you need to get started with video is a decent quality smartphone and access to some kind of editing software. Plenty of cheap and even free options exist for both Windows and Mac users. The one that I would recommend is Filmora for its ease of use and a powerful range of features but, of course, there are many others as well.
The most important thing is to take action, and remember, what you do (or fail to do) right now is going to have an enormous impact on your business in the coming weeks and months.
About Glow Digital
Successful marketing is all about connecting with your customers and building lasting relationships to ensure brand loyalty. In today’s hyperconnected world that means having the right message to amplify on the right platform in order to make your company stand out from the noise.
That’s what Glow Digital does best. We’re passionate about telling your brand’s story on social media and turning brand awareness into sales.
