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Survey Results: How Are Marketers Responding to the Pandemic and Lockdowns?

As the lockdown eases and more employees head back to the office, we were interested in investigating the challenges small businesses have faced due to the Covid-19 pandemic, what they have been doing over lockdown to develop their business, any upskilling they’ve done, the technology they’ve used over this time, and what their plans and outlook for the future are. 

The team at Tech.co surveyed 100 small businesses about how they’ve managed during the lockdown.

  • 80% of small business owners said Covid-19 has had a negative impact on their business, yet 55% are feeling very positive for the future
  • 100% of respondents have been using lockdown to build their business, with the majority focusing on marketing, connecting with customers, and upskilling.
  • 76% have upskilled during the lockdown – with SEO, social media, learning a new language, and data analytics as the most common new skills to learn.

The businesses surveyed were from a mixture of industries, but the most common sectors were B2B services (28%), beauty, health & wellbeing (18%), retail (18%), software/ tech (7%), and travel (5%).

The Business Challenges Faced

The most common challenges to businesses were fewer sales (54%), followed by having to reschedule product launches and events (54%), struggling to pay staff and business costs (18%), and affecting investment opportunities (18%).

The Business Responses

All respondents surveyed said they had used their time under lockdown productively to grow their business.

Unsurprisingly, the majority have started focusing on what they can offer online, and building up their digital marketing strategies, with creating new content (88%) and online offers (60%), holding or attending online events (60%), connecting with customers (57%), and upskilling (55%) as the most common things to do over lockdown. 

Some stated they’d had some positive outcomes as a result of Covid-19, including an increase in online sales, having more time to focus on marketing, growth in their mailing list, learning new things, new product launches, and getting to know their customers better.

The most common new skills for people to develop were learning SEO (25%), social media (13%), learning a new language (3.2%), data skills (3.2%), and PR (3.2%).

Technology Deployment

Technology has played a crucial role in business success over this time. Zoom, WhatsApp, and email were the most common ways to communicate with staff, and social media marketing, email marketing, web conferencing, and having an online website or store were the most beneficial forms of technology. The majority have used lockdown to update their website, with 60% tweaking their current site and 25% building a new one.

Advice for Small Businesses

Despite the difficulties faced, 90% responded that they had either a very positive or quite positive outlook for the future of their business. We asked respondents to give advice to other small businesses during this time. These are the most common things that were mentioned:

Pivot and Prioritise 

Prioritising what you are good at and knowing what works was mentioned by several respondents:

Use this time to sharpen what you are already good at.

Joseph Hagen from Streamline PR

Focus on your strengths, don’t experiment too much. Do more of what works for you in terms of customer acquisition and focus on that. For us, that has been email marketing and we’ve doubled down on it.

Dennis Vu of Ringblaze

Get the balance right between cutting costs and investing in the future. See this as an opportunity to engage, build trust and loyalty.

Sara Price from Coaching Service Actually

Test New Things & Be Agile 

Others said that now is the best time to be agile, and develop and test new things on your audience, particularly in a time of uncertainty.

Agility is key, things are moving so quickly all the time that you need to keep an eye on the news and trends, and respond fast.

Lottie Boreham of BOOST&Co

Take a step back and strategise, to use your time wisely. Test out new offers on your existing customer base, tweak them, and then do an imperfect first round.

Michaela Thomas from The Thomas Connection

Look for opportunities that are unique to the situation. We’re making the most of the lockdown period by providing free building advice from the company partners.

Kim Allcott of Allcott Associates LLP

Reach Out And Get To Know Your Customers

The importance of knowing and understanding your customers and their needs cropped up a lot in the advice given by businesses. Businesses can use lockdown to really focus on building customer retention strategies.

It might seem counterintuitive but really lock down your niche, define your absolute ideal customer the one you are perfect for. Think about them and their current challenge. If you were in their shoes what would you be looking for right now? Then make sure your product or service clearly talks to that solution. We make the mistake of talking about us when we need to be talking about and to our customers.” said

Kim-Adele Platts of Executive Coaching

From a B2B perspective, I think it’s important to maintain contact with your customers and let them understand that you’re there to help and support them through this challenging period. So whether that’s producing helpful content to navigate the crisis, or reassuring clients services are at their disposal to help cope, it’s important to open dialogue early and to continue talking to your client.

Jon Davis of tech company Medius

Talk and make connections with your customers. Find out what they want you to do to help their situation. Use this time to create content that is good for now and for the future as this period of time won’t be forever.

Calypso Rose of online store, Indytute

Focus on Marketing

In times of economic downturns, companies often have to make cuts. Often, it’s the marketing and advertising budget that is cut. However, many respondents pointed to the continued importance of getting your marketing right.

People are more open than ever to have online conversations, use their social media, and connect with new people. Developing a good and effective website is more important than ever.

Julia Ferrari, Web designer

Step back from trying to grow right now and think ‘what conversations can I start now that could mature into a potential client-conversation in 8-10 months’ time?’. Lockdown is a great opportunity to work on long- term marketing projects.

Joe Binder of WOAW branding agency

A good website is key. Make it your personal brand. Showcase testimonials from clients to build trust and show you know what you are doing. Use technology (video conference and screen-shares) to interact and present to clients. Strangers are getting more comfortable with doing business online. Show your face and provide solutions to their problems. If you don’t have expertise or need help in a certain area, find a virtual assistant. We use assistants to help with blog writing, creating graphics, and CRM management.

Chris Abrams of Abrams Insurance Solutions


Customer Retention Strategies

Conor Cawley

Conor is the Senior Writer for Tech.co. For the last four years, he’s written about everything from Kickstarter campaigns and budding startups to tech titans and innovative technologies. His extensive background in stand-up comedy made him the perfect person to host tech-centric events like Startup Night at SXSW and the Timmy Awards for Tech in Motion.

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