The Ultimate Covid-19 Marketing Guide (How To Market During A Recession)

Hey guys, Sabri Subhi here and I really just wanted to put together a video and really a training for you about how to market your business during COVID 19 or even during a recession. Now I'm not saying that we are in a recession right now, but we're definitely experiencing like a hiccup in the economy. And I've had like countless emails and messages on social and all that kind of stuff. People saying, hey Sabri, like can you put together a video or a training that specifically how you're attacking this or how you're seeing your clients kind of win during this time, or not even win, but survive and then how to like not only survive through that process and pivot and adapt, but also is there a way that you can thrive during this period? Well, these are kind of all the key points I'm going to be talking to you in today's training about. And specifically, you know, you, yes, you can. To answer your question about can you market and thrive and even like survive and thrive during this time? 100% you can. And you know, I've got hundreds of hundreds and hundreds of clients. I'm in contact with thousands and thousands of businesses every single month and I get to see it firsthand. And I have a very unique vantage point where I have the perspective of not only working in my own business and looking at my own lead generation and my own marketing and sales process and what's happening in the business for my own self, but also having that vantage point of working with so many clients and seeing across all the different industries what's working, what's not, who's suffering, how are they overcoming that and really adapting? And the first key question that we really think about when we're looking to help a business through this period is really asking like, can you sell right now or not? And that comes down to the one word which is like adaption. If you're selling, you know, a product or service that you are literally not able to sell it in its current form, then you need to look at ways that you can adapt. You can pivot and you can modify your business model and your service and product offering to be in line with what is actually going to be out to sell right now, I. E. If you're selling something like that's a 12 month contract or it's a huge investment and it's a long term benefit that person's going to get, then this is probably not going to be the best time to be selling that solution. Or if you're in the restaurant game and that's being closed down. Traditionally just servicing people in your actual restaurant or if you're running events, travel, there's so many different kind of areas that the normal way that they trade and do business has kind of been locked down and they are needing to look at the real word, which is adaption. And how do they adapt? Like if you're a restaurant business and you're used to having 200 heads come into your restaurant every single night and cover charges, that's not going to be happening anymore, right? Or you're doing events. So the thing that you need to look at is like, okay, well, I've got a kitchen, I've got all of these ingredients, and I still have a staff. So what is it that I can do? What is a way that I can pivot my business model to still be able to sell during this climate? And an example for that might be you do like lunch packs or dinner packs and you, you're actually, you sign up to Uber Eats or Deliveroo or one of these companies and you keep revenue coming in the business. Because one thing that I've seen during these times of uncertainty is that people typically try and contract, they go into survival mode and really what they do is they even cut off the things that are benefiting them. And what I mean by that is the way that I look at it, it's like during this time, you know, you're gon have certain cost structures that are associated with your business and you're going to need to be looking for efficiency wherever you can in your business, with your vendors, with your suppliers, with your staff, with your rent, with your overheads to any capacity, right? And then the things you want to be looking at, trying to save 5 or 10% and squeeze and see where you can kind of modify things and get a little bit of leeway. But then on the things that are attached to the oxygen, I. E. Sales and revenue and marketing for your business, this is not an area that you want to cut back on or that you want to stop and cease. Because if you're looking at the organism that is your business, it needs oxygen to survive. And the number one source of that oxygen is customers is new leads and getting your offers in front of people. So the really thing that you need to be looking at is like, okay, what is oxygen and what is not? And where do I eliminate the things that aren't oxygen so I can further reinvest in pumping more, more oxygen into the system? How do I put more grease on the wheels to keep this engine moving through these difficult times. And if the way that you've conducted business previously, when we weren't experiencing this climate that we're in right now, if you're unable to sell like that anymore, then you need to look at pivoting, you need to look at adapting. And that doesn't just go with your business model. I'm talking about adapting your ads, your offers, your landing pages, your messaging, how you're speaking to people, how you're following up all of the different nuances in the processes that are attached to that revenue creation. Things need to change. Your email nurturing sequences need to change, right? All the languaging and the messaging that you're putting out there into your marketplace, you need to adapt and you need to pivot it, right? And if you can sell, if you don't need to pivot your business model and you can continue to sell just the way that you previously have, then you still need to change the messaging, the ads, the landing pages, the offers that you're making, and also like your sequences and your emails and all the automation that goes off the back of that. So once you've kind of addressed that and really just kind of looked at your business, looked at all the landing pages, look at where the traffic is coming through to your website and to your offers and all of that kind of messaging, what's on your contact us form, what's in the eyebrow of your website and all of that jazz, then it's time to basically make sure that's all in line with this whole COVID 19 and with this whole economic hiccup that we're experiencing right now. And could this thing spiral into a full blown depression? We don't know, right? Nobody knows. And the people that say that they do know are pretty much lying, right? Because you can't know with 100% certainty what's going to be happening with all this situation and how long it's going to take to blow over, right? It's all just models. And a lot of those models are being proven wrong. So you want to look at that, get all of that in check. So that's the very first touch point that you need to do, do a full audit of your business, what's going on and how do you adapt it to be able to sell in this climate and understand that if you're not going out into the marketplace with vigor and you're not looking to expand, you're not looking to get new customers coming in, there is only one way for you to go. And that is to contract, right? And that is the opposite of life. So that's not the road that you want to go down during these testing times. The next thing I want to talk to you about is really having a back end in your business. Now when you're advertising and when you're going out there and you're getting customers, right? The most unprofitable sale and the most unprofitable way that you can get clients is by not having a backend. And this is typically What I see, 99% of businesses, how they're operating, they don't have a backend. They are trying to spend a certain amount of money on ads, then they're trying to basically get traffic, convert that traffic into leads, then get those leads coming into their business, or that's E commerce, get that traffic to convert into a customer. And then they're trying to make enough profit on the front end to be able to pay for all of their overheads and their advertising and their sales staff or their web developers or their agencies or wherever it might be and still have enough money at the end of the month to basically go out there and buy proteins, shakes and pistachios, right? Or raspberries or whatever it is that you like to buy, or avocado on toast. And they try to make that whole exercise a real profitable one. And that is a rookies game, right? That's how rookies operate their business. And this kind of what, in this unforgiving environment that we're in right now, you can't get away with doing that anymore because there's just not enough profit on the front end to sustain the business with all of the other losses that are taking place. So the thing that you need to do is you need to sit down and you need to develop a back end for your business. So what exactly is a back end? So a back end is essentially any sale that occurs after that whole process of going out there and trying to advertise to get a new customer, right? So the second sale, the third sale, the fourth sale, what does that lifetime value of a client look like to you? That is the back end of your business. And if you don't have one, you need to spend the time immediately to develop that. What are some other like kind of, you know, products and services that really go well and complement with your current core offering that you can offer to your existing client base. And the reason for that is there is no cost associated with acquiring that customer or getting them to rebuy, I should say. So the chances Are that you, if you've been in business for any period of time, you have a book of clients, you have a book of people that have given you money some way, shape or form, and the easiest way and the lowest lying fruit in your business. And for a way for you to prosper during this time is to go back to those people that have already given you money and offers them something that's going to help them solve a problem that they're currently experiencing. Right? And that's the big, big key thing. And it's not just in these times like having a backend is what really allows you to be the number one apex predator in your market because it allows you to have the ability to be able to spend the most amount of money to acquire a customer. And he who can do that is the person that wins that war, right? Whoever can buy the most bullets is the one that wins the war. So that's really the way that you want to be thinking about it. And you don't want to be looking at just the advertising and just converting more leads into sales or converting more traffic into customers, but really is in developing this back end. And as a typical rule of thumb, you know, I say that you need to have three extra products or services that you can sell to a client once you convert a prospect into a customer, okay. And you what you'll find is like typically speaking that 20 to 30% of people that buy your first offer off, you will buy the second one and then a further 20 to 30% of people will buy the third and so on and so forth with the fourth. Right? And typically you want to have as an absolute bare minimum three different offers that you make to that client after they come on board. And really what that's going to do is it's going to go straight to the bottom line because you've already liquidated or you've already burdened the cost to acquire a customer. And then every subsequent sale that you get, you know, the margins on those things are through the roof and that all stacks to the bottom of your profit and loss statement. Right? And that's really what I want you to focus on. This is the number one key. Like you need to get that stuff sorted pronto. And this is a really good opportunity to take the time right now to develop this thing out. If you do this and you send out a couple of emails to your database immediately, that's going to bring cash into the business. Okay? Now the next thing is, are you selling candy, vitamins or painkillers and this is really known as like in the venture capital community, when they're looking at assessing deals and they're looking at the viability of businesses, they really look at these kind of three core things. I, is it just like, is it candy? Is it a gimmick? Is it a fad? Right? What is there long term longevity in this business or am I just capitalizing on this little fad? Like a lot of the products, like single product businesses that come in, they ride a wave and then they die and they move on to the next thing, right? That's not a business, that's an offer, that's a promotion that you have, right? So you make, you want to make sure that you don't fall into that category. And then it kind of the bulk of the market is split up into vitamins and painkillers. And really, you know, vitamins is like a nice to have. Like it doesn't really solve a pressing problem and it's not super important, but it is a nice thing to have. And it's very, very difficult to sell vitamins, not a typical actual physical vitamin. I'm using an analogy. In this climate that we're experiencing right now, the only thing that you can sell in large volumes and protect your business and protect your staff and protect your family is if you sell painkillers, right? That is, is this a solution that solves an immediate pressing problem or does it present an opportunity that this problem has created? And what I found is that vitamin offers with the right messaging and marketing and copy can be positioned as painkiller solutions. And this is the thing that you really, really need to think about because we're in a situation where businesses are going out of business. Everywhere you look, you're seeing it. There are a lot of businesses that are winning that. I'm going to go over with you in a moment, but this is, this comes with great grave seriousness and I really need you to approach it as such. So some examples of this might be right, you might be in the property investment space and if are then typically the messaging for that market is replace your 9 to 5 income and build wealth through a property portfolio. Right? Basically that's the whole thing. Retire rich, replace your income, provide for your family, live an abundant future. That offer doesn't work anymore, right? People are worried about their job. They're not worried about replacing their job, they're just worried about having money come into their household right now. So that whole long term pitch and like, you know, building a nest egg for the future, you can forget about that you're going to have a very difficult time in trying to sell an offer like that. So how can you take that offer that is a vitamin and how do you turn it into a painkiller solution to a pressing problem that we're experiencing right now? Well, one way to do that is to look at what are the effects that COVID 19 and this kind of economic contraction that we're experiencing right now have presented in that. Well, money has never been cheaper, interest rates are slashed, right? There are obviously predicting that the property market's going to plummet. So what you are allowed to do is you're allowed to go out into that market and take this message that you were going out there about building long term wealth and actually talking about how this is a very unique opportunity to get involved in the property market when it's the lowest that it's been in a very long time, when money is the cheapest that it's been in a very long time. So if you were sitting on the sidelines thinking, wow, I really missed out on that property boom, right? Didn't really get the results, like it would be too late for me to come to the party or I don't have enough liquid assets to go out there and borrow enough money to be able to finance putting a deal together. Well, all of that has changed now because of the market that we're in right now. And you really want to position that offer is like, this is the second wave. This is the best opportunity that's come about. If you've been looking at the property market, right, and you've been looking to get involved, this is the perfect time. So you bring all these people off the sidelines that have just been observing it and been like window shoppers, but not pulling the trigger and taking any action. You pull all those players from the bench down onto the field, right? And that's just one example how you would pivot an offer to being a painkiller solution. Now, I'm not talking about capitalizing on people's misfortune. I can't stand that shit, right? And I'm completely against it. What I am about is looking at solutions and looking for opportunities in this space rather than staring at problems, right? And you're genuinely providing a service that helps people to that marketplace. You're just changing the messaging and the positioning the offer to being something that is a nice to have, to being like, I need to act right now. This is a great solution to help me sell, solve this problem. So I really want you to start to think about that in your own business and think about how is it that I can really structure up that painkiller solution, right. You might be in digital marketing and the reality of it is, depending on what business that you're in, not a lot of people are signing up for like 12 month SEO contracts right now because there's a lot of uncertainty. They still have this, they still have the problem, right, that they're looking to solve, which is they want to bring clients into their business. Right. But they're not looking at it in the same way anymore. So a painkiller solution to that right now is that paid traffic has never been cheaper. Like in the last couple of years we're seeing a drop of 40 to 70% in the cost of per CPM on Facebook. A lot of Google AdWords traffic. The cost per click has fallen through the floor, right? And in line with that yet conversion rates have gone down a little bit. But I'm going to get to what is a workaround for that in a moment. But there's a huge opportunity for you in this pressing time when your current clients may not be buying, when people might be pausing, when people might be contracting, you still need to bring money in. And it's a great way to do it through digital marketing because everybody's online. Facebook, Instagram, all these platforms, they're breaking their records with a number of active users on their platforms and time on site. Right now they're having to throttle traffic numbers and the definition, quality of videos because there is. They're getting flooded, their service can't handle it. Right. And that means there's a lot of people, there's a lot of eyeballs. And digital marketing presents an incredible opportunity for you to get in front of those eyeballs. Right? So rather than talking about the long term SEO rankings and traffic growth and all that kind of stuff, you want to be looking at like, how do I get clients now? What's a solution that I can bring clients into my business during this economic climate? Now that brings me to the next point, which is emails, ads and education. So the quickest way to go out there and start to bring in revenue is really to start reengaging your email marketing. Now what I've seen across the board on all of my email stats is that open rates are typically up. Click through rates are also up from those emails because people have more time on their hands, right? They're no longer on the go, they're kind of housebound, so they've just naturally got more time. So really, you Want to start firing up your email again and start getting in contact with either your prospects or your customers, or ideally both of those. But basically, you don't want to be just doing the normal shit that people are doing with their emails. Like, how many emails have we all got over the last three, four weeks or so of people just saying, like, some COVID 19. Just, like, just getting in contact to make sure that you're okay, we're still in business. Like, there's. There's no value in that, right? You're just basically emailing them to let them know you exist. That's not what you need to be doing. You need to be talking to them in a relatable way and to be talking about what you're going through, how you can help them solve their problems, and ultimately delivering value. That's the number one key when it comes to email. Forget the copywriting, forget the styling, how beautiful the email template works, all of that stuff. None of that matters. You look at my emails, there is no styling that's intentional, right? But it's all about how do I deliver value, how do I help you get to where it is that you want to go? And that's exactly the same exercise that you need to be doing in your own business. Typically me, I email my list once a week, right? During this time, I've increased my efforts. I've been sending three emails per week right now. Why? Because one, it's a great way to communicate with people. And this is a time when you want to be looking at what are the most profitable ways to stay in contact with your tribe and your client base, but also your prospects and potential people that you can do business with. So I don't care where you're at in your business, what the limitations are, what the tech stack that you've got. Fire up your email campaign. If you've got an agency, get them to do it. If you don't find somebody, go on up, upwork or freelance or do anything that you need to do. But get this puppy sorted and get it done, like in the next 24 hours because it's that important for you, then the next thing is ads. A lot of people's natural, like, inclination is to, like, as I said, contract, stop running all their ads. Scale everything down. Right now is the time that you want to double down. Why? Because ads have never been cheaper in a very long time than they are right now. CPMs are through the floor, meaning that you get more real estate, you can buy a bigger block of land for 40 50, 60 or even 70% of what it was costing you a month ago, or whether it will cost you once this thing all blows over. So it's a really great opportunity to basically be running ads. And I suggest when you're running ads, it's not to a landing page where they speak to a salesperson or it's not to an E comm website. You're going straight for the transaction, straight out the gate. It is to lead with value and to do some kind of high value content offer that allows you to aggressively build your database. And the reason that I say that is even though the traffic costs have gone down substantially, what we're also seeing in a lot of industries is the conversion rate has also gone down, not in direct proportion to the cost, but it has slipped substantially. And that's just natural because the confidence level across all markets has also dropped. Right? That doesn't mean that people aren't interested, but it means they're less confident in actually pulling the trigger and buying. So by leading with a value offer, like a high value content offer, a free report, a webinar, a cheat sheet, something of value of video series, it allows you to get a huge, huge discount on getting those people into your database. And when the economy does bounce back, we're going to get this V shaped bounce back right where we've dropped and then it's going to bounce back and there's going to be all this pent up demand and you're going to see a huge surge and a huge growth in your revenue. And who do you think that they're going to want to do business with? The person that they don't know, they don't know them from Tom, Dick or Harry, or the person that's been educating them, emailing them two, three times a week during this testing time. The answer is obvious, right? And it allows you to bring those people into your world, into your business for a huge, huge discount. So the return on investment that you get, it's going to be a longer payback period, but you're going to get a huge, huge payback and it's going to be much higher than what you would typically expect because you've gotten such a concession and a discount on bringing those people into your world. So if anything, the thing that you want to be really looking at right now is gonna Google trends and type in like the three to four keywords that are in your market that people are typing in order to find your product or your service and just have a look at what's Happening to the search data. A lot of businesses, guitar lessons of property investment, a lot of industries that you would have thought aren't going to work are getting unprecedented amount of traffic. So just do it for your industry. I think that it will be very insightful to see what's going on. Look at the last 12 months, look at the last 30 days and see what the traffic looks like. If there's a huge surge in traffic. Google Ads is going to be a fantastic channel for you to get out there and start getting customers and start getting leads into your business. If there's not, then Facebook ads is a great way to push a message, push a stimulus in front of your audience with the right offer and with the right messaging that is time specific to what it is that we're going through right now. That would be a great channel for you to get out there because the cost to reach those people is very, very cheap. Then the last thing that I really want to talk about, you know, on this line of kind of acquisition is really the education piece, because conversion rates are down so low. Right. What you need to be leading with is education. Because what we've seen is that when you're leading with an education offer right now that the conversion rates haven't dropped. It's only when you're going straight for the transaction or you're trying to book in a lead with a salesperson straight out the gate. That's where the conversion rates have dropped because the level of certainty has dropped. So what you really want to do is look at what is a piece of education that you could be providing in your market. Right. And how can you package that up to make it relevant to what it is that we're all going through and specifically what your market is going through and your prospects and your clients. And that's the way, that's the workaround. That's how you can kind of circumvent these low conversion rates. And you're going to have a longer, like payback period on that because you're not going straight out the gate with the offer. But what I can tell you is that once those people come into your world, right, they download your free report or your white paper or whatever it might be, and then you make them an offer. You're still going to get those hyperactive buyers that are looking to make a purchase right now, but it's just going to allow you to build that database at the cheapest cost you've probably get seen in the last three, four, five, six years. And probably the cheapest that you're going to see it ever again, right? So that's really what you want to do. You want to lead with education. Now lastly, in red is mindset, right? Mindset is everything, right? I really like to look at like, you know, 20% of success comes down to the mechanics. How to run the ads, how to write copy, how to do all of those things, how to make a sale over the telephone, how to convert a client, how to service that person. But then the whole rest of the piece is not in the strategies and it's not in the tactics. It's what's in between the ears, it's in the mind, it's in the mindset. And perception is reality. Okay? And if you're letting the news, if you're letting the media dictate what is going on to you right now, they have created your reality. And please don't forget what business the news stations are in, right? They're in the business of basically buying eyeballs and selling attention right to their advertisers. And then you need to think about, well, how do they monetize that the best? What determines who gets the most eyeballs as a news station and who doesn't? It's whoever writes the most sensationalist headlines and whoever has the most engineered clickbait and the most outrageous, breaking, shocking news, horror stories to break to you is where the attention goes. So by design they are engineered to be very sensationalist and to distort the truth because they're in the business of is getting much eyeballs to their medium to monetize those eyeballs better than any other, any of the other stations, right? And if you're looking, if you're just plugged into this thing and that's where you're getting all of your information, then you're going to be screwed from the get go because you're going to think the world is coming to an end and things are never going to return to normal. And that becomes your new reality. And when you are in a state of fear, you are paralyzed, you are immobile, you are not doing anything because you are scared shitless of what's going on. And that is not a state of feeling empowered. That is not a state that you're going to take any action. And the only way that you're going to be able to get through this thing and not only survive but to thrive during this time and after this time is if you take some action. You need to get out there. You need to start basically be taking twice the amount of action that you usually do, because uncertainty is half of what it usually is. So the activity that you need to be taking this, the confidence, the conviction that you have as a business owner, as a business builder, needs to be twice as high for you to combat everything that's going on around you. Now, this time is going to pass, right? That is for certain. We don't know if it's four weeks, we don't know if it's four months, we don't know if it'S four years, right? But one thing is for certain is that it will pass. So what you choose to do with this time then becomes really the most important thing to look at. So if you're spending an hour to two hours a day watching the news, then that is time that is not. You're not going to get that time back. And you knowing of how many cases are out there and what's going on and which prime minister or president is saying this thing, that doesn't actually do anything that you can take action on and have a positive impact on your business. So what I urge you to do is to only check in on that stuff on the minimum, right? Because there's no point spending time and energy on something that's not going to change your reality. The thing that's going to change your reality is the level of action that you take. And every hour that you spend plugged in to this new stations and these news websites, it takes you away from your business and being basically going on the offense and not being in this defensive reactionary state. And that's really what you need to do, right? You, as a business builder, whether you like it or not, have signed up to be a leader, right? And leaders are really created in these testing times. Anybody can run a business when the economy is all good and everything's all gravy and there's nothing to worry about and we're going through a huge economic expansion. It's only once the tide goes out do you really see who is a serious business builder who is up for the task of leading a team and navigating this storm when the waters get rough, okay? And you want to be feeding yourself with the things that are going to really be arming you to be able to deal with this situation. Reading books, you know, watching interviews with other leaders, really looking at what are the things that I can do, how do I retool myself as an entrepreneur, as a leader, to be able to deal in these turbulent times, times. And that's really getting to know yourself and Being confident in your ability to lead. And if you're not, then you need to read books on leadership. You need to read about stories of how people react to adversity and testing times, and how can you kind of implement some of that into your own life and being a leader? But the time right now is not to contract. It's not to sit back, you know, hyperventilating and rocking back and forth in a state of panic, just wishing and praying that this thing's going to blow over. You need to take it into your own hands, and you need to take action right now using all of these strategies that I'm giving you to better your situation and to invest in yourself. So not only do you survive this time, but maybe you can even thrive throughout this time. But if you don't, if you just do survive it, if you really do all of this stuff, and if you invest in your mindset and sharpening the sword and really getting your mind right in this stage, then when this thing does blow over, you're going to be a much better leader. You're going to be a much better person, and you're going to be positioned to really take your business to a completely new level. But that's not going to be happening if you're just sitting there and you're hoping for something to change. You need to take initiative, get out there and make it happen. So what I want you to do is I really want you to look at all of these things and I want you to come up with a timeline of what things that you're going to address, when you're going to address them, and go out there and make it happen. Because this mindset piece, the thing that you should be thinking right now is everything that I was doing prior to this economic contraction is no longer going to cut the mustard. It's no longer going to get me the results anymore. So I have to become more disciplined. I have to wake up earlier, I have to work harder, I have to work smarter, and I have to aggressively invest in my business to get myself out of this. Because, you know, everyone's relying on you. Your team's relying on you, your family's relying on you. The whole community and the economy relies on people to go out there and make it happen. So right now is not the time to retreat. It's the time to go out there, take as much action as you can, and work your way out of this thing. I hope this helps. I hope wherever you are that you, your family, your friends, everybody is safe. Don't wait for this thing to blow over. Go out there and make it happen. Thank you. 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