May 2020

MAY 2020 AFTERMARKET 17 www.aftermarketonline.net search-friendly terms within website copy, ensuring your website is supported across both mobile and desktop, and creating good user experience (UX) are all vital in helping to deliver results. This might include optimising content so users land on the most relevant page for their query, improving loading times by reducing image sizes, or implementing an easy to navigate site structure so customers can easily find the pages they want. See what your competition is up to Conducting a competitor audit can provide useful insights on what works and what doesn’t, which can be used to inform your own digital strategy. Use this time to dive into your key competitor’s websites, social channels, and other comms they put out there and analyse what content and messaging are working well for them. Identify which strategies might compliment your own marketing mix, and learn from any mistakes they have made. Why does digital strategy matter during the lockdown? Digital marketing is key to customer acquisition, but it can often take the backburner. By investing in your digital strategy during quieter periods, you can future proof your sales and performance. Staying active on your channels and engaging with customers during the lockdown also helps to maintain relationships with your audience. Consumers use the likes of social media and websites to determine whether brands reliable and that the products/services are relevant for their needs, as well as finding out whether they’re open for business too. Inactivity across social media for a prolonged period of time can act as a deterrent for new business, putting consumers off engaging with the brand and purchasing said product/service once the lockdown state is lifted. This point in time also offers a unique opportunity for your brand to move away from commercial messaging and content such as prices and promotions, which, while necessary, consumers can find dull and repetitive, so you should view this as a chance to provide your customers with something a little more creative. Move into the territory of adding value for your existing and potential customers, for example by sharing useful tips and advice pieces for people to use in their daily lives during lockdown. For the aftermarket industry, this might look like sharing videos on checks to make on your car during lockdown. In addition to providing extra value to your customers and follower base during this time, ensuring your social media channels and tone of voice are consistent across the board, setting up Google Analytics, developing website content, and investing time into your search engine optimisation now, will stand you in excellent stead further down the line. SEO, in particular, should be viewed as a long-term strategy, but by complementing it with these additional steps it will help you to track what marketing is working, and what isn’t, and allow you to use this to build a better ongoing strategy. So, while there’s a lot of ambiguity for businesses in the UK at this current time, one thing is for certain. By paying attention to your digital marketing strategy now, it will almost certainly help with customer acquisition later down the line – just in time for when lockdown is lifted and people return to their usual daily routines. Search Laboratory is a full- service digital marketing agency with a dedicated international team, and is one of just eight UK- headquartered agencies with Google Analytics 360 Sales Partner status. They provide data-driven, organic and paid search campaigns in over 35 different languages worldwide

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