How we coped with the consequences of quarantine ourselves and helped customers: a practical case

Behind two months of quarantine, forced downtime, remote work, consumption restrictions and a complete transition to the online mode. We decided to share our experience and the experience of our customers during this period in order to show which niches grew in quarantine, what indicators show their effectiveness, what could be expected and what results these actions brought.

Everyone has read a lot of articles about: “crisis is a time for growth”, that it is necessary to actively position yourself on the Internet, be antifragile and show what Ukrainian entrepreneurship is capable of.

We in the SPRAVA outcome from the following premises:

• The crisis of 2020 is an objective long-term reality, in which the maximum achievement of current efficiency is required, if this is not possible you have to minimize losses. If there is a resource you have to grow due to the redistribution of the market.
• Not all businesses are in related conditions. Not only because of its internal features, but also because of the type of activity and how quarantine actually impacts on them.
• The business is unable to change the external conditions in the market, but can process in the domestic market.
• The more enterprises cope with the current difficulties, the faster and easier the crisis will be overcomed by all of us. We are all in the same boat.
• Past experience does not work, all hypotheses must be supported by numbers, and where this is not possible, we have to test

Based on this, we have developed and implemented a work plan for our customers. But in addition to the peculiarities of working under quarantine, it is important to take into account the changed market conditions:

Therefore, we prefer our customers and recommend you not to reduce the online presence, and if possible, increase the activity of working with the Internet audience. Now it is important to keep in touch with your potential buyers, cooperate with those sites where sales and communication channels have already been built and look for new opportunities.

Internet Marketing in a Crisis: Our Approach to a Customer Project During a Pandemic

After a robust analysis of all the projects that we currently offer a comprehensive service (SEO, PPC, technical support), we found out that there are clear groups in various niches.

The first group included all businesses covering the HoReCa service industries and services that require close contact with the buyer: hotels, restaurants, cosmetic services, dentistry, plastic surgeons, etc.

The second group includes those enterprises that may be interested in changing their offer. For example, a cardboard manufacturer has the opportunity to enter the market with its offer for delivery companies, and for a law firm to consider the possibility of consulting online, and so on.

With the third group, in our opinion, everything is simpler: work and do not mind, but even here everything turned out to be not so easy, read below what exactly was undertaken.

This is the table we got:

Breakdown was made on the base of niche analysis, Google Trends was one of the tools for it. A few examples of charts that we used for analysis and for communicating with our customers below (data in the screenshots for the first of April):

As you can see from the paving slab interest chart, not much changed due to the quarantine and guaranteed seasonal growth is predicted

The number of users who searched for wall paneling on Google fluctuated slightly, but demand remained

According to Google, interest in awnings should grow significantly

Google predicts growth in car repair requests

How to work during an epidemic, who is YET unable to work fully due to quarantine?

We did our best to accommodate, prepared discounts and started working on guarantee letters. The services within the packages were not changed, while some of the payments have been transferred to post-quarantine times. In addition, the information on the websites was updated in accordance with the expectations of visitors and the peculiarities of work during quarantine.

For example, we changed the content of the USP on the start pages, indicating the possibility of online consultations:

Prepared recommendations on the specifics of working in quarantine for their industry. For example, in our blog it was possible to get acquainted with the recommendations of the world's leading marketers on working in the current situation:

Translation of Rand Fishkin's article "Marketing is #$%*ing hard right now" We found out the article about the most effective methods of working in quarantine

We turned to expert hoteliers Olga Mishchenko and Tatyana Goncharenko and received the most detailed recommendations:

• How does a hotel act during a crisis?
• A survival recipe for restaurants in 2020
• and an overview of what awaits HoreCa after quarantine

Detailed recommendations for e-commerce on working in the post-quarantine period

Consider the important aspects of work that may be critical to your business right now:

Delivery	If earlier users chose goods in various stores and proceeded from the cost, now delivery and its cost are important for them. The more convenient conditions and lower cost you offer, the more likely you are to win the competition. What we do: optimize cost. By breaking down the shipping cost and including it in the price of the items, you can offer free shipping to your customer. increase the speed. A large number of services are now presented on the market that will help an online store organize a fast and convenient service, scale the business not only in one region, but throughout the country. integrate the calculation of the cost of delivery to the site. Most delivery services offer convenient services that allow you to calculate the cost based on the weight and dimensions of the goods indicated on the product card of the store; write the most detailed conditions on the site. For online stores, the page with the terms of delivery has always been relevant, in the current situation it will become one of the most popular. Alternative methods: use local taxi service for delivery employ staff as couriers transforming the store into a distribution point.
Payment	Acquiring is now needed. Most consumers have now stopped using cash, it is more convenient and faster to pay with a card. SPRAVA will help you integrate the acquiring system of the most convenient bank for you. Or we will connect an online cash register to your website to receive payments: Interkassa, a single cash register Fondy and others - payment terms are transparent for everyone. Users who previously only purchased offline may be wary of online payments. Therefore, the task of the online store is to indicate all possible options for events - guarantees for the return and delivery of goods, contacts for customer support.
Make a showroom from the site	All mandatory requirements for an offline shops are now mandatory for an online store: Navigation and search. Not all users come to the main page, so all pages of the site should have easy navigation and the ability to go to the desired section. Increase your customer's average check. Remind them what else they can buy with this product and offer popular little things with current discounts. How SPRAVA will help: we make the most convenient search and structure on the site, filters and tips, recommended products, new items and more Product card - the page where the purchase decision is made. Give the opportunity to "touch" your product through the screen. To do this, make a gallery where there will be a photo with different angles of the product, video reviews, immediately visible price, reviews and the ability to leave them, a detailed description, the ability to compare, the ability to postpone the product. Working hours and order processing. The user now accesses the Internet just like in a shopping center. Give him the opportunity to understand that you are in working mode, ready to respond to messages at specific hours. It is better for you to expand your usual working hours, consult until 21-00, for example. Confidence. This is especially true for businesses that have just moved online. Users need to know your story. If you have been on the market for 20 years, tell us about it. Behind every online store there are real people, show how they look to your potential client. Create a gallery of your offline store, so the user will understand that you have a real business, and not just created.
Expand the possibilities of communication	It is important for a distrustful user to be in contact with him. Give the opportunity to do it in any way: make a basket with the opportunity to leave comments and ask questions; activate the feedback form; start an online chat with real-time communication; leave your work phone in the most obvious and not only places. Don't forget to give the buyer the opportunity to reduce the time to buy: buy in 1 click call me back form
Expand the reach of the target audience	Increase traffic through competent SEO optimization. Optimize product cards, which will make it possible to find an online store even by model and article, improve the completeness of the response to user requests on each page, and improve behavioral indicators. Grow branded traffic. Users who knew and loved you offline will most likely go looking for a store online as well, and here it will be very important to be not only in the first place in search engine results, but also on all possible advertising platforms. List your products on marketplaces. Specialists will help you set up the uploading of your exports from the site to upload them to all popular services for the sale of goods, as well as set up advertising impressions on them. Connect contextual advertising. If previously you were only offline, then this is the fastest and most reliable way to show your store to the target audience. Competent adjustment of advertising allows you to make a profit in the shortest possible time. With all of the above, specialists from the SPRAVA will help you. Give targeted advertising in social networks. There is a place for any product on the social network, especially given the fact that traffic there has only been growing in recent weeks. The main thing is to choose the right place and target audience.

On condition that you were not on the Internet at all, then now the most suitable time will appear there. And the bill goes to the clock, the faster you do it, the more likely it is to be in the forefront and break away from competitors. In this case, you should listen to all the tips above for successful e-commerce website promotion and start by quickly deploying an Internet resource. There are several options for this:

• development of a business card site to represent a business with maximum communication opportunities + contextual advertising + further refinement of the site. This will allow you to quickly make yourself felt and subsequently get a high-quality online sales tool.
• fast development of an online store and its integration with 1C to fill it with goods + connection of all possible online sales channels.

Marketing in crisis 2020 and who needs a quick repackaging of products and services?

With projects from the second group, it was necessary to:

• analyze each niche and determine what services and goods are currently in demand;
• consult with the customer and determine whether they are ready to work in a non-standard mode. For example, we proposed for auto repair companies to reconfigure contextual advertising for refueling air conditioners. And hotels that have detached cottages should develop long-term rental options. Medical centers have been advised to consider providing telemedicine services. Legal firms provide advice online.
• make adjustments to the landing pages of the site, taking into account the modified services and peculiarities of working in quarantine;
• to rebuild Google ADS campaigns for the new service format. Moreover, it is important to emphasize in the ad texts the safety of a possible purchase and the fact that the health of buyers is in the first place for us.

To our regret, not all of our customers, whom we approached with an offer, were ready to increase their activity on the Internet. Here we have both examples of frozen work for the entire period of the coronavirus lockdown by the decision of the owner, as well as excellent cases of traffic and sales growth due to active work with contextual advertising.

For example, below is a screenshot of traffic dynamics from organic search and contextual advertising before and after the announcement of quarantine for the site of a cardboard packaging manufacturer

Business in a crisis and how to increase profits for those who did not stop work during a pandemic?

For companies from the third group, we held detailed online meetings with figures and graphs from Google Trends and screenshots of contextual advertising of competitors. We showed that there is a demand for these services and goods and it can be converted into sales.

A significant part of the customers from this group supported our proposal. For most of these projects we:

• developed a separate promotion strategy for the quarantine period;
• in accordance with it, made the necessary adjustments to the site
• adapted contextual advertising to new realities

This work allowed for most of the projects from this group to keep traffic and conversion at the pre-quarantine level.

The most difficult thing in this whole process was tracking all-Ukrainian and regional restrictions, changes in opening / closing, frequent changes in the features of work in different niches, adjusting the site and contextual advertising in accordance with these requirements.

You may also be interested in reading How did we work with a new project that came just at the very beginning of the lockdown and for which we achieved a 50% increase in organic traffic in two months.

As Morpheus said in The Matrix: “Blue pill and you are a happy person living in the Matrix. Red pill and you get into the real, but unpleasant world.

There is always a choice, but we have chosen the real world, where you can and should fight and survive. Internet marketing in a crisis is just good marketing.