Adapt To Survive - Your Business During COVID-19 » Dolo Digital Blog

Adapt to Survive – Your Business During COVID-19

When all is said and done, the economic landscape will likely look much different than it did pre-pandemic. Businesses that plan ahead and adapt have a chance to make it through it.
The New Normal

Adapt Or Be Left Behind

Unless you’ve been living under a rock or are Jared Leto on a meditation retreat, chances are COVID-19 has affected you in some way. At the time of this writing, cases all around the world are skyrocketing, the stock market is shaky, industries are laying off workers, and businesses are struggling to find a way to navigate these troubled waters. When all is said and done, the economic landscape will likely look much different than it did pre-pandemic. Businesses that plan ahead and adapt have a chance to make it through it. 

In this blog, we will show you…

DISCLAIMER: this is a general guide that will not apply to all businesses/industries. We realize that every situation is different, but hopefully this will provide some useful information to help you get through this. 

gif from the show the walking dead
Hey, at least there's no zombies?

Managing A Remote Workforce

Tele-Conferencing

“Tele-conferencing” refers to using softwares to hold virtual meetings, similar to Face Timing someone. This is not a new phenomenon, but it has greatly accelerated as a necessity due to the pandemic. Whether you need to meet with employees, clients, three people, or fifty people, you can do it all using tele-conferencing. And, thanks to modern technology, it is fortunately easy to get started.

logos - google hangouts, google hangout meets, and gotomeeting
Our Top Picks

1)  Google Hangouts

Price: FREE

  • Pros
    • Starter plan supports up to 100 participants at once
    • Chat functionality
    • Simple and easy to use
    • Screensharing capability
  • Cons
    • Must have a Gmail account to do text or video calls (phone calls OK)
    • Limited functionality & integrations compared to other services

Other free tele-conferencing options: Skype, FreeConferenceCalling

2) Google Hangouts Meet

Price: (starts at $6/month) – view pricing options

  • Pros
    • Best bang for your buck. Google Hangouts Meet is available a G Suite subscription which comes with other collaboration and productivity applications
    • Supports to 100 participants at once
    • Simple and easy to use
    • Screensharing capability
    • Integrates with Google Calendar
  • Cons
    • Only accessible using the Google Chrome browser on computers
    • Dial-in phone calls limited to 8 hours
    • Lacks some collaborative meeting tools offered by others, like surveys, polls, etc. 
    • Recording only available with the Enterprise Plan

3) GoToMeeting

Price: (starts at $14/month, 14-day free trial available) – view pricing options

  • Pros
    • Starter plan supports up to 150 participants
    • Unlimited meeting recording capabilities
    • HQ audio signal
    • No time limit on meetings
    • Screensharing capability
    • Plenty of integrations available (i.e. Salesforce)
  • Cons
    • No free, basic plan available
    • Stable internet connection required – even a small glitch will require you to completely restart the meeting

Task Management Softwares

Juggling a lot of projects can be difficult, especially when your employees are working from home. To keep everything running smoothly, we recommend using a task management software. These are tools that help you organize all of your projects, assign tasks to employees, collaborate on ideas, etc. We recently wrote a blog on this topic, explaining which is our favorite and why! Check it out below. 

Migrating Your Business Online

E-Commerce - Now is the Time

As of 2018, nearly 2/3 (64%) of small businesses in America had a website. If yours does not, now is the time to get one! The next step is setting up your website for e-commerce – if it’s suited for your industry.

A few of products/services that can be sold online:

  • Merchandise
  • Gift cards
  • Consulting services
  • Video series (ie by a fitness trainer)
  • Subscription boxes
  • and much more!

Dolo Digital has been building e-commerce websites for years. Contact us today for a free consultation to see if e-commerce is right for your business. 

Staying in Touch With Your Customers

3 emails in your inbox

Email Newsletters

Email marketing remains one of the most powerful tools businesses have at their disposal. Whether you are trying to drive sales, providing updates, establishing yourself as an authority on a subject, or wishing a customer happy birthday, email marketing is well-equipped to help you succeed.

Don’t just take our word for it – look at the data.

  • ROI
    • For every $1 spent on email marketing, you can expect $52 in return, a 25% increase from the previous year (DMA, 2019) – We converted pounds to dollars for this blog
    • Shoppers spend 138% more when marketed to via email compared to those who do not receive email offers (Disruptive Advertising, 2018)
  • Proven effective
    • 91% of marketers rated email as the “most important” marketing channel (DMA, 2019)
    • You are 6 times more likely to get a click on an email than on a tweet (Campaign Monitor, 2019)
    • Abandoned cart emails sent within 1 hour can convert 6.33% of shoppers (SaleCycle, 2019)
    • 59% of surveyed consumers say marketing emails influence their purchase decision (SaleCycle, 2018)
    • 40x more effective at acquiring customers than Facebook & Twitter combined (McKinsey, 2014)
  • A receptive audience
    • Americans on average check their work email 3+ hours per day and their personal email 2+ hours per day (Adobe Email Usage Study, 2019)
    • 68% of millennials prefer to receive communications from brands via email (Helplama)

Which Email Marketing Platform Should You Use?

email provider logos, sendinblue, mailchimp, and omnisend

Now that you’re ready to start utilizing email newsletters to stay in touch with your customers, which platform should you use? We’ve used a variety of them over the years, and each has their own strengths/weaknesses. Without going into too much detail, here are our favorite email platforms and why.

Sendinblue – Our favorite, accessible & customizable

MailChimp – Industry leader and easy to learn, use

Omnisend – Great for e-commerce

Growing Your Email Audience

There’s no better time than now to start growing your subscriber base! The sooner you do, the sooner you can reap its benefits. Remember though, this is not a “one-and-done” process – it is a marathon that requires consistent time/effort. 

Here are a few places you can attract subscribers and tips to entice them to join:

Website

  • Email signup form
  • Gated content – Offer a compelling piece of content (ie whitepaper, video, etc) and make it only accessible when someone subscribes to your newsletter
  • Pop ups – Although they’re typically unwelcome, pop ups can quickly grab someone’s attention. Butter them up to with a special offer that is only available to subscribers

Social Media

  • Facebook email signup tab
  • Driving users to a landing page with an email signup form
    • Instagram, for example, gives each profile one URL that they can link to, but you can expand this number by leading users to a landing page with additional links. This can include an email signup form! Need help? Contact Dolo Digital today!
  • Social advertising
    • Facebook lead gen ads

Government Assistance & Other Initiatives for Small Businesses

The CARES Act

The CARES Act was signed into law on Friday, March 27th 2020. It contains $376 billion in relief for small business owners, including…

Federal Income Tax Filing/Payment Extension

Small business owners fortunately do not have to fret about taxes for a few more months. The new deadline for filing your income tax return is July 15th, 2020. This new deadline is also true for tax payments of up to $10 million. For state and local tax information, we recommend contacting your state tax agency. 

Facebook Small Business Grants Program

Facebook is offering $100 million in cash grants and ad credits for businesses disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Unfortunately, in the US, this is only available for businesses in major metropolitan areas. Use the button below to see if your business qualifies. 

Facebook’s advertising support is limited during this time. Fortunately, Dolo Digital has extensive experience in setting up and managing Facebook/Instagram advertising campaigns. For a free consultation, contact us today. 

Amazon Neighborhood Small Business Relief Fund

Amazon created a relief fund for small businesses located around their Seattle headquarters office. To see if you qualify, visit the link below.

Yelp Relief for Restaurants & Bars

Yelp is offering free advertising credits for restaurants and bars impacted by the pandemic. This is available for small, independently owned restaurant and nightlife businesses in the US, Canada, Virgin Islands, and Puerto Rico. 

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Ryan Laffler

Ryan Laffler

Chief Marketing Officer

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