5 important steps to take when re-opening your small business

You’re a local business and ready to re-open after closure due to the Coronavirus. You’ve met all the necessary protocols to safely re-open your business, and you’re ready to announce your reopening to existing customers — and new ones. Your message has been crafted and you’re ready to get the word out.

Here are the steps you need to take.

1. Target the right audience with your message

You’d be surprised at how much money is wasted on bad targeting that only hits customers within a select radius. If you were to draw a circle around your store on a map, would that circle only contain people who are likely to come to your reopened location? Or would you hit neighborhoods that won’t deliver customers? If you owned a gym in Hoboken, New Jersey, such a circle would include Manhattan’s West Village, where residents would have to cross a river to get to your gym (hint: they won’t, especially in the current climate). You need hyperlocal targeting of audiences that are likely to come to your location. This is especially true now since guidelines for re-opening vary by state — and may even vary by county.

2. Spend money where it counts

The pandemic has shifted media consumption habits, and you may pour money into channels that consumers aren’t using. That’s valuable time and money wasted, especially now, when time and money is precious. There are two channels you can bank on right now if you’re a small business: email and social media. 37% of US adults would prefer to hear from a brand via email during the pandemic, while 20% want to hear from them on social. From there, you can branch out to other channels, provided you’re working with a one-stop-shop that provides multichannel people-based marketing and has constantly-updating data.

3. Get transparent results

It’s estimated that 40% of all ad spend is wasted because marketers can’t get accurate insights from data to measure the impact their ad dollars are having on sales. You need a partner that shares results quickly and transparently, so you can make better decisions. This is especially true now, when media consumption habits are shifting, seemingly by the day. If you don’t have transparent results from your ad partner, you can’t quickly move money away from underperforming audiences, channels, and creative, and towards the advertising modes that produce results.

4. Understand these results

It’s one thing for a marketing partner to share results. It’s another for those results to actually mean something. While metrics like CTR, open rates, and impressions are a piece of the puzzle, they can sometimes obscure the larger picture: how many people are engaging with your message and, more importantly, coming to your store as a result of seeing that message? You need a partner that uses people-based metrics that tell you what actually matters.

5. Reach real people

You need to know your message is hitting a real person, not a bot or cookie. First-party data that’s tied back to a verified person eliminates the guesswork in identifying an audience and ensures you’re connecting with real and relevant people for better targeting and increased ROI.