Responding to Coronavirus/COVID-19 as a Business
Recent developments related to the Coronavirus/COVID-19 global pandemic have made it very clear that we are in uncharted waters. There is so much uncertainty surrounding this disease from how to test for it to how we can treat and cure it. What is certain is this:
We face a long night ahead
Many people will lose their jobs and many businesses will unfortunately go under. Protecting human life is the priority but protecting our way of lives is also important and the economic conversation should not and cannot be muted.
This is a pivotal moment in time for your business
In the words of Dylan Thomas we must “not go gentle into that good night,” but instead, “rage, rage, against the dying of the light.” We’ve rapidly assembled and deployed this page to help you chart a path through this storm and we are here to help you get through it. Please do not hesitate to reach out via the chat feature at the bottom right with any questions you have.
The businesses that meet this moment will be the ones that survive
How to Survive Coronavirus/COVID-19 as a Business
A Step-by-Step Guide
GET LEAN
Put simply, you need to cut the fat. The only expenses you should have should be the ones that are mission critical to your keeping the lights on. This will mean some hard decisions like payroll but remember, if you don’t survive then these employees won’t have a job to come back to.
GET CREATIVE
You need to dig deep to identify new services you can provide using the skills and tools you have at your disposal. These will likely be things you’ve never thought about before. For example, restaurants can rearrange their business model away from dining and take out and towards meal kits.
GET MOVING
This is not the time for complacency or idleness. Create your war room, grab your coffee/tea, silence the distractions, and get to work on creating your plan. There is a lot of talk about self-isolation. You need to self-isolate until you have a plan of attack for your business.
Coronavirus/COVID-19 Business FAQs
Discover answers to some of the most commonly asked Coronavirus/COVID-19 questions. We will be constantly adding and editing information as we expand our knowledge on the subject.
Coronaviruses are a family of fairly common viruses that affect both people and animals. Coronaviruses can, on rare occasion, be transmitted from animal to human hosts. This occurred in 2003 for Sudden Acute Respitory Syndrome (SARS), in 2012 for Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS), and is believed to be the cause of COVID-19.
again for
The Novel (“new”) Coronavirus is a previously unidentified coronavirus strain that causes COVID-19 (coronavirus disease 2019).
- CO – “Corona”
- VI – “Virus”
- D – “Disease”
Optimistically – Memorial Day. Realistically – Late June / Early July
China implemented draconian lockdown measures whereby citizens couldn’t even leave their homes (China installs door monitors to alert authorities when people try to leave their home). Even after nearly 3 months of these draconian measures China has yet to lift its lockdown of Wuhan Province and will likely only do so sometime next month. In contrast, the U.S. and western countries have implemented much less drastic measures with little enforcement.
If our less intensive measures were to somehow miraculously be as effective as China’s hardline measures then we’d be looking at Memorial Day with regard to lifting lockdowns. However, it follows logically that our efforts won’t be as effective as China’s which would mean that we’d be in lockdown for longer than them.
The effects of Coronavirus/COVID-19 will extend long past the current lockdowns. There will be two stages that we go through.
- Lockdown/Mitigation – This is the current stage. The purpose of these lockdowns isn’t to prevent you from getting Coronavirus (40-70% of Americans will), but rather, to slow the spread so that our health system isn’t overrun.
- Cautious Re-Assimilation – This will likely begin sometime towards the middle/end of the 2nd quarter when we’ve developed the testing capacity necessary for contact tracing and when our healthcare professionals have developed tested procedures and guidelines for treating patients. This period will last the remainder of the year and most people will contract Coronavirus during this time. However our ability to care for them will reduce their mortality rate and
People will still be very cautious and the businesses appropriately and visibly address the health concerns of consumers will be the ones that
People with the following medical conditions are at higher risk:
- Heart Disease
- Lung Disease
- Diabetes
Additionally, people who are overweight and the elderly are at greater risk.
Wipes or solutions containing at least 70% alcohol are effective cleaning agents to kill Coronavirus.
There are two types of businesses that will be relatively unimpacted by this pandemic:
- Essential Businesses – grocery stores, shipping companies, warehouse operators, as well as major online retailers like Amazon and Walmart.
- Businesses whose business model is already oriented to social distancing – pizza chains, food delivery services, etc.
As stay-at-home orders get rolled back and social distancing becomes the new normal, the businesses that adapt to social distancing guidelines will fare the best.
Community Spread is used to describe infections that occur with no clear source. For example, someone catching Coronavirus who never visited Wuhan would be an example of Community Spread. Once a virus achieves community spread it becomes much more difficult to control.
CORONAVIRUS/COVID-19 SURVIVAL GUIDES
We are assembling tailored survival guides for businesses most affected by the pandemic. Click below to access information, ideas, and resources tailored to your vertical.
Coronavirus/COVID-19 Stats
SERVICES
We are a full-service search engine marketing company dedicated to helping brands connect with highly qualified, high-intent leads online. Our suite of Search Engine Marketing Services maximize your exposure to inbound search traffic for the products and/or services you sell.
How Restaurants Can Respond to Coronavirus/Covid-19
The food industry will be one of the hardest hit simply because your business model is in direct conflict with the guidelines and recommendations of government officials and healthcare professionals. Whereas having a bunch of people efficiently packed into a dining room would normally be a restaurateurs’ ideal situation, it is now a nightmare breeding ground for Coronavirus. While we always like to be optimistic under normal conditions these aren’t normal conditions. The ideal outcome here is that you don’t go out of business and the best outcome is that you don’t lose money.
Let’s focus on what you have. You need to shift your business model away from the dining room and towards what you can do with a commercial kitchen.
If you temporarily shift your business model away from the dining room and towards what you can do with a commercial kitchen then offering prepared meals is an option. Hundreds of millions of Americans either cannot cook, cannot cook well, and/or would rather not cook constantly. A trusted neighborhood restaurant that solves this problem on a daily or weekly basis is a valuable service.
As mentioned above, cooking is a skill in which many Americans lack proficiency. Perhaps the hardest part of cooking is gathering the necessary ingredients to make a meal and prepping. This is something you are undoubtedly good at. Offer meal kits whereby customers can buy kits which include all the ingredients they will need to make certain meals (maybe even add instructions).
We’ve seen several restaurants adopt this strategy in the last 2-weeks with some success. Consider offering discounted gift cards to customers online whereby they can essentially buy bonds in your restaurant.
Now might be a great time to get back to roots by teaching people the fundamentals of cooking. To do so, all you need is a camera (any iPhone/Pixel/Samsung Note released since 2018 will do) and a kitchen. To get started, layout a content plan (if you need help just start a chat with us below) whereby you outline all the videos necessary to teach a particular lesson (i.e. ingredients, meal prep, cooking, presentation, etc.). Practice what you will say and how you will film. Then, when you feel comfortable, start shooting content and deploy this content on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, etc.
How Personal Trainers Can Respond to Coronavirus/Covid-19
As discussed earlier, SEO is a process not a single action. This is because it takes data-driven optimizations executed consistently and adjusted accordingly to positively increase your rankings for queries relevant to you. You need to see what works, what doesn’t, and make adjustments where necessary. We test keywords to refine your keyword targeting so that you produce the greatest volume of traffic with the highest conversion rate.
We test keywords to refine your keyword targeting so that you produce the greatest volume of traffic with the highest conversion rate.
We test technical optimizations to identify the ones that create the greatest benefit.
We review your site content to identify the content that your users prefer and want to engage with.
How Lawyers Can Respond to Coronavirus/Covid-19
As discussed earlier, SEO is a process not a single action. This is because it takes data-driven optimizations executed consistently and adjusted accordingly to positively increase your rankings for queries relevant to you. You need to see what works, what doesn’t, and make adjustments where necessary. We test keywords to refine your keyword targeting so that you produce the greatest volume of traffic with the highest conversion rate.
We test keywords to refine your keyword targeting so that you produce the greatest volume of traffic with the highest conversion rate.
We test technical optimizations to identify the ones that create the greatest benefit.
We review your site content to identify the content that your users prefer and want to engage with.
How Realtors Can Respond to Coronavirus/Covid-19
The dangers involving infectious diseases, let alone the anxiety they cause, create significant challenges for the real estate industry. You can’t exactly sell a house, at least not the way you normally would, if you can’t give tours. The home buying and selling processes have effectively been put on pause during the implementation of social distancing measures worldwide and it is likely that things won’t immediately go back to normal once these preventative measures are lifted. Instead, it will take time for things to return to normal, or to the “new normal.”
What Can Realtors Do?
Now is the time to pivot your mindset in a way you may have never thought of before. New challenges require new ideas. Perhaps the answer lies in the main reason people hire realtors in the first place – your knowledge. Specifically, your knowledge of the real estate industry and the local real estate markets you serve. Here are some ideas for your consideration:
With your daily client obligations effectively being nonexistent, now could be the perfect time to focus on developing your brand’s digital assets. Digital Assets are your brand’s digital properties, they include:
- Website
- Blog
- Social profiles
- Podcasts
These are the perfect vessels to export your knowledge to. If done correctly, they can become reliable lead generators as their visibility in search results relevant to the real estate services you provide increases.
Perhaps the greatest value you can provide right now is helping existing homeowners navigate this market. Whether that means helping them find ways to not default on their mortgages or connecting them with buyers willing to give a fair price, get ahead of their biggest concerns.
How Coffee Shops Can Respond to Coronavirus/Covid-19
As discussed earlier, SEO is a process not a single action. This is because it takes data-driven optimizations executed consistently and adjusted accordingly to positively increase your rankings for queries relevant to you. You need to see what works, what doesn’t, and make adjustments where necessary. We test keywords to refine your keyword targeting so that you produce the greatest volume of traffic with the highest conversion rate.
We test keywords to refine your keyword targeting so that you produce the greatest volume of traffic with the highest conversion rate.
We test technical optimizations to identify the ones that create the greatest benefit.
We review your site content to identify the content that your users prefer and want to engage with.
How Food Distributors Can Respond to Coronavirus/Covid-19
Do you sell ingredients to restaurants? Perhaps you are a local butcher, fisherman, farmer, etc. Now that demand for the products you sell restaurants has fallen you should consider a Direct-to-Consumer (DTC) business model. Plenty of people still want to consume what you sell, they just don’t want to/can’t do so at restaurants. Create a radius around your business’s location that you feel confident delivering within. This is your service area. Now make some fliers and start dropping them in every mailbox within this service area.
Front door delivery of superb ingredients is a unique selling proposition (USP) that many might find valuable during this time. Not only do you remove the need to go to grocery stores (likely the greatest risk of catching Coronavirus for most people), you are giving them a service normally reserved for restaurants. Create a list of ingredients you can deliver and start reaching out to the community offering front door delivery.
We test technical optimizations to identify the ones that create the greatest benefit.
We review your site content to identify the content that your users prefer and want to engage with.
How Content Creators Can Respond to Coronavirus/Covid-19
As a content creator, you are uniquely positioned for this pandemic. Not only are people consuming more content while at home during social distancing, many are looking for ways to make money from home. Teaching people how they can make money from home is a message that resonates with people now more than ever.
Creating and optimizing social profiles on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and other popular social networking platforms isn’t as easy as it sounds. For example, YouTube has a very specific hierarchy for channel content which needs to be considered during the content development process in order to get the best results. Consider helping people get
As a content creator you undoubtedly have some proficiency using editing tools like:
- Final Cut
- Avid
- Photoshop
Teaching these skills is a great way to help students and aspiring content creators.