Aiming for quality not quantity is one of the top messages emerging from the sea of advice for digital marketers grappling with the effects of COVID-19. Established methods of generating sales and attracting clients have been rocked by restrictions, creating giant hurdles for business and forcing a rethink of where money is spent. No longer can strong connections be forged face-to-face via trade shows, after-work networking events and conferences - some of our strongest business building pathways are suddenly no-go zones.

Marketing consultants advise tackling the scenario by refining marketing tactics to achieve optimal lead generation. Yet once this is achieved, marketing strategy must go even further, says property marketing consultant and founder of www.realcontent.marketing Kylie Davis.

Why? Because the uncertainty created by COVID-19 demands business owners strive for a clear understanding of customer motivations, fears, and needs.

“The main way marketing in real estate has changed is that it’s becoming more focussed around defining and finding the ideal client for a property,” Ms Davis said.

“But then the way to success is to dig deeper into their needs. Where’s their head at? What do they need to know to find the property attractive and allay any fears they may have?

“We are in a truly unique situation in which transactions have fallen not because people don’t want to pursue them but because they’re scared. The past 12 months have seen an election, a winter season, and catastrophic bushfires which saw some markets come completely off line. So we’ve had almost a year of delayed transactions due to external forces.”

Ms Davis said she cannot stress enough that agents refrain from promoting themselves. The pandemic calls for empathetic communications and gleaning a true understanding of how their potential client feels.

“In commercial property we’re finding the majority of business owners are fearful around issues of space requirements – how much they will or won’t need – and if people will want to increasingly work from home, and does that mean they need to upgrade their address,” Ms Davis said.

“At the moment a client may be looking at a transaction and think the prospect is terrific but they’re simply not prepared to make a move yet. This requires agents to communicate clearly, be empathetic, and find the logical reasons why a client needs to act.”

Among further key pointers designed to help businesses battle through COVID-19 chaos are:

Zone in on your market

Why cast a butterfly net when you can capture your target demographic? Doing the latter delivers an audience far more likely to hold your perfect client or customer – and better leads generally see better results. For this reason, digital marketing strategists are advising that, just for now and as tempting as it may be to do the opposite, to steer away from heavy investment in SEO or Google ad words. Depending on your industry, this money could be better spent on more targeted ways of finding that ideal client or buyer. In the B2B market for instance it can more effective to gain articles in publications that appeal to your ideal demographic, direct solus* EDM mailouts and advertise on websites on strategically selected digital channels.

Aim to capture quality data

“Contact us” forms are fine, but in this era of high stress and need for information there are more effective ways to attract your specific audience. A key way of doing so is creating content your market will find enormously appealing – such as a whitepaper on navigating a current crisis in a particular industry or an answer to a common problem – then capturing the traffic’s data  including emails and phone numbers through a CRM.

Opportunity is everywhere

The https://www.stimuluspackage.com.au/ website was created when NSW Central Coast digital marketing firm Increaseo detected a gap in the market for a one-stop-shop where businesses could find all information on both federal and state government business support schemes. It came about when the firm’s managing director Troy Roennfeldt went searching for information to help his own company and the 10 digital strategists he employs. He realised not only was information about the myriad stimulus packages not parked in one spot, but to his amazement, the domain www.stimuluspackage.com.au was not registered. After checking he had spelt the word stimulus correctly, Mr Roennfeldt bought the domain and worked day and night collating and combining the various state and federal government stimulus package information into one easy-to-find website which is constantly updated. Voila.

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.* A solus email is a third-party advertisement that is sent to an opt-in subscription email list comprised of the third party’s target consumer demographic.