The long-term effect that Covid-19 will have on local and national businesses is as of yet unknown. With the recent developments surrounding corona virus (Covid-19), have your put protocols into place to let your audience or customers know about changes to your daily options?
Inside this article, our Knutsford web design agency has put together some helpful hints and tips on how you can educate your online audience. In addition to these updates, we will also take a look at what impact this could potentially have on ecommerce-based websites and what services we can provide as a design agency in Cheshire.
How to educate your audience
Update your Google My Business Details
Google My Business is a great way starting point to educate your audience. Firstly, searching for your business on Google is a very likely scenario where users will first find and engage with you. It’s also a platform many small businesses will use to ‘claim their listing’ without having a website or little online presence.
Now, I’m sure like most of you who are now basing yourselves from home and avoiding contact, this will mean a host of changes to your day-to-day business activities. Google My Business allows you to easily update the following;
- Update your business hours
- Update your telephone number, especially if you are working from home
- Educate your audience with a Google My Business Post with your latest update.
Educate website visitors with up-to-date information
From a local convenience store to an online web design agency based, we can be both based in Knutsford but Covid-19 will disrupt and change daily options in many different ways. For example the local convenience store may extend opening hours and also put measures into place to stop spreading the disease, whereas an online web design agency will be base themselves from home.
There are several ways you can instantly educate your website visitors with up-to-date information. You can create a pop-up so when users land on your website, they will have to read the information before they close. This is something we have helped several of our clients out with. Alternatively, you can also educate your customers with a newsletter update to stress if business will be uninfected or effected by the Covid-19 outbreak.
Having helped our customers with creating pop-up’s and newsletters, please contact your local Knutsford web design agency on how we can assist you to educate your audience.
Social Media
With the world coming to a standstill in isolation, users and potential customers will be spending more time on social media platforms. Although some social media announcements will be hugely important to your business, not all updates will always provide value to users with other things on their minds in this worrying and unknown time. However, when you are posting social media, ask yourself if this something customers are looking for or is this helpful in educating customers about your business changes?
- You can provide updates on business hour or phone number changes
- Offer customer support to help with enquires, related to Covid-19
- Communicate stock updates on particular products or services
What impact can this have on ecommerce websites?
With consumers urged to stay at home and avoid public places, it obvious that e-commerce websites will see an upsurge in traffic right? According to a study conducted by Econsultancy Marketing Weekly, 71% of UK Marketers believe there will be an increase in e-commerce usage as a result of COVID-19.
How are large e-commerce websites coping with the demand? Morrison’s are one UK retailer who are introducing an extra 3,500 jobs to cope with online demands. Amazon has also announced they are hiring 100,000 workers to “”meet the surge in demand from people relying on Amazon’s service during this stressful time, particularly those most vulnerable to being out in public.”As you may have seen in the news recently, Amazon have also temporarily stopping stocking certain items in its warehouses, to cope with overwhelming demand for household essentials due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This also applies to third-party sellers who sell non-essential items through Amazon so could find it difficult to ship orders to customers.
Okay, so while large e-commerce chains such as Amazon and Morrison’s were built for situations like this, small e-commerce websites selling healthcare, food and groceries products can also expect a spike in online sales.
If you are an ecommerce business who haven’t been affected by the COVID-19 outbreak, look to ensure your customers that business remains as usual and you can still meet demands with the following information;
- Provide updates on all delivery information
- Provide accurate, up to date information on stock levels
- Provide details on how return and exchange policies
Do you need help educating your audience?
From creating website pop-ups, to newsletter alerts to e-commerce assistance, we are a Knutsford web design agency who are here to help assist you so you can educate your audience.
If you would like any help with educating your audience, please contact us and will look to help continue to the growth of your website.