How to Deal with the Trauma of a Pandemic: Part 2

Jun 8, 2020 | Spotlight

Joey Donavon Guido of Cuppa SEO returns with Part 2 of his guest post on dealing with the trauma of a pandemic—this time, on a professional level. He offers short-, mid-, and long-term strategies for improving your business. And, be sure to check out his list of resources for further consideration.

In Part 1 of this series, we talked about different ways to deal with the trauma of a pandemic on a personal level.

Today, we’re going to tackle the professional side, focusing on the following online marketing strategies:

  • Short-term strategies to help make things better now
  • Mid- and long-term strategies that can help your business down the road
  • We’ll also revisit self-care, as it plays a role in your professional success, too!
  • I’ve included a Resources section to help you further dive into these strategies

 

Short-term Strategies to Help Make Things Better

  • Email: Are you sending out a monthly newsletter to your email list?
    If you are, great! If you’re not, now is an excellent time to put a newsletter together. Whether you have an email list of 100, 1,000, or 10,000, connecting with clients, colleagues, and friends is a good idea. We’ll talk about WHAT to include in the newsletter shortly.
  • Zoom: Beyond meetings, how else can Zoom serve you?
    A few questions to ask yourself: How else can you use Zoom to connect with clients and potential clients? Are there any services you can offer remotely? Are there any webinar-like presentations you can facilitate to educate people or help them through the pandemic?
  • Social Media: Are you still connecting with people on social?
    If so, what are you talking about? Are you selling in the same old way, or are you connecting with people in meaningful ways? And are you using video as part of your social media mix?

    Whether it’s video or text in your post, there’s one important detail I want to share with you: If you include a text link, be sure to place it in the “first comment below,” as opposed to directly in your post’s content. There’s a good reason for this. When you post a link right in your content, the social media platform—whether it’s LinkedIn, Facebook, or whoever — doesn’t like it. The platform will present your post to FEWER people because they don’t want people leaving their social media channel.

    When you include a text link in your post’s first comment, you wind up bypassing the penalty, and your post is likely to be seen by more people. I’ve tested this out myself and have seen a marked improvement in impressions—which has also led to more engagement.

Now, whether it’s email, Zoom, or social media, the big question is WHAT do you present to the people you’re talking to? In other words, what do you post in the middle of the pandemic, and beyond?

Since nobody likes to be sold to, the content you create should focus on connecting and building relationships in human ways. How is the pandemic affecting your business? How is it affecting your clients’ businesses? What have you done, or helped your clients do, to survive the pandemic? Or, maybe your products or services, such as Zoom, can help people or organizations through these difficult times. Bottom line? Keep it real, keep it honest—and keep it human.

In order to accomplish this, I have three “magic” questions to ask for every piece of content you create. To ensure your content packs the most value possible, always do your best to CLEARLY and SUCCINCTLY answer these three magic questions:

  1. What is it?
  2. What does it do?
  3. How does it help me (benefits)?

I call them magic questions because they get to the heart of what your content needs to contain.“If they like you, and they believe you, and they trust you, and they have confidence in you…then they MAY buy from you.” — Jeffrey Gitomer

One More Short-term Strategy

Review and improve the user experience (UX) and conversion methodologies on your website.

– User experience is the positive, negative, or neutral experience someone has on your website. From your navigation, to the hierarchy of your web pages, to how well you present your calls-to-action, every part of your site affects the user experience. Make sure the experience you’re providing is a positive one!

– Conversion, in a nutshell, is a strategy that takes a website visitor from where they are to where you want them to go. Please note how I’ve worded this: “from where they are, to where you want them to go.” More often than not, your call-to-action will take the form of a button on your website.

Mid- and Long-term Strategies to Help Strengthen Your Business Down the Road


Before we begin this section, it’s important to note that you’ll want to continue all of the strategies mentioned above. The only difference is the short-term solutions are more “fast-acting,” while mid-and long-term strategies take longer to bear fruit.

  • Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
    – Have a professional, experienced SEO expert—with a proven track record—optimize your website. An optimized website can help get you found more often.

    – If you can’t currently afford an SEO expert, I suggest you implement what I call “common sense SEO.” There’s a lot more info on this in my book, A Holistic Guide to Online Marketing, if you want a low-cost way of getting more SEO into your website ASAP.

  • Blogging: Are you creating written or video content consistently?
    Blogging consistently helps you connect with clients and potential clients and provides fresh content on your site—which helps improve the SEO on your website. Why is this important? Because fresh content can affect where you land in search results for the products and services you provide. Yes, it may be a hassle to write at least one blog post per week, but yes, it’s also worth your time. Just like we discussed earlier, answering those three magic questions is critical to writing successful blog posts.

How Self-care Plays into the Equation

Without self-care, you are not at your best to help others or find solutions for yourself. I will repeat what I mentioned in Part 1 of this series here (for those of you who missed it), as it’s a critical component of dealing with life and business during the pandemic, and beyond.

  • It’s incredibly important to exercise, meditate, and be kind to yourself—and find healthyself-care habits. In other words, make self-care a part of your daily life.
  • I’ve found this concept to be difficult because my goal is to always take care of my family and clients first and foremost. What I realized the hard way was that if I’m not taking care of myself, I’m no good (or less good) to anybody. Once I started consistently taking care of myself, my overall well-being improved—and all my relationships improved, too!
  • Awareness: Check in with yourself to see how you are doing. If you’re like many people and are still super busy, you may have to be very deliberate and actually STOP for a minute. Then check in with yourself and gauge where you’re at emotionally, cognitively, spiritually, and physically. Leaving any of these parts of yourself unchecked can have negative results like burnout, emotional outbursts, and exhaustion.
  • Acceptance: Once you’ve assessed, in a mindful way, how you’re doing, you may feel resistance (especially if you’ve determined you’re not doing as well as you’d like!). Accepting how you’re doing, and “meeting yourself where you’re at,” as opposed to resisting what is, can go a long way in helping you get back to a place of balance.
  • Practice a “Yes, and” Philosophy. After diving deeper into practicing acceptance, I started doing the following. I’ve worked hard on removing the word “but” from my vocabulary, and it’s made a significant difference in my life. So now, instead of saying something like, “Yes, I have a flat tire, but I don’t want a flat tire” (resistance), I say, “Yes, I have a flat tire, and what can I do about it?” (acceptance). This approach puts me in a way more positive frame of mind—and helps me find a solution.

Resources

Finally, I’d like to share some resources with you that expand on the concepts presented in this series.

Meditation & Spiritual

  • Eckhart Tolle – A New Earth:Audio version is fantastic, as you can meditate while you listen
  • Meditation Apps: Check the app section of your iPhone or Android and try some free (or freemium) options that look good to you. Since this is subjective, a little trial and error may be necessary

Exercise

  • Take a walk or run in the park
  • Carrot Fit: provides quick, as-intense-as you-want, workouts you can do in your own home. This is a kind of snarky app, so you might want to turn off the audio “commentary.”

Positive Thinking & Goals

  • Goals: Get the audio recording. Zig’s voice is a significant factor in his greatness; you can also find this at most libraries or on Apple Music

Business

Until next time, be well!

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