Business & Brand needs more hope and joy at this difficult time. We’re working to keep people safe and informed about the recent outbreak of COVID-19. We know that businesses like yours may also be experiencing unexpected challenges, and we’re committed to providing as much support as possible. We owe you this much.

About 99% of businesses in Indonesia are small; small business employs over 50% of the private sector workforce. Small businesses are vital for Indonesia, employees live in the community and so do the customers they serve. Unfortunately, all communities are susceptible to natural hazards, and businesses are vulnerable to human-caused disruptions. The majority of small-to-medium-sized businesses are unprepared for disruptive events.

Research indicates that 40% of businesses never reopen after a disaster, and 25% of businesses that do reopen fail within a year. Our #SabdaCare initiatives are designed to help you increase your ability to survive and even thrive COVID-19.

After a disaster, many owners of small-to-medium-sized businesses learn one lesson the hard way: “I wish I had done something in advance to prepare.”, for them, they hadn't planned soon enough.”

It is not too late for you and your business to take action. You owe it to your business, your employees, your communities and yourself.

Things are looking incredibly bleak right now. Given the shutdown of public activity, grim news from the stock market.

#1 Keep yourself safe and informed

Stay up to date on the situation by monitoring official sources like WHO and your local government health department. It’s important to stay informed of any developments so you can respond quickly to changes that may affect you or your business.

#2 Protech the health and experience of your customers

Be proactive in informing your customers about the measures your business has taken to ensure their health and safety. If you are in retail or offline business and situated in a high-traffic area, communicate the measures and efforts that you do in your social media. For example, keep your customers informed about temperature checks, convenient hand sanitization kiosks, washbasins, bathrooms, and other efforts. You can set your customers’ minds at ease by informing them that all your staff are required to wear masks at all times, and are subject to temperature checks twice a day. If your business has a CRM program in place, you can consider utilizing WhatsApp, email, or DM to facilitate these announcements.

#3 Offer alternative business avenues (take away, e-commerce, and other resources)

If your business has the resources to support alternative avenues, consider activating on Ecommerce, take away, delivery on your own or through Go Food, Grab, or utilizing resources such as Social Media to feature and sell your goods and services. You can also consider leveraging digital ads as a solution to match your customers’ needs to the most relevant and available products and reach to consumers and drive sales to you.

in case you should need to postpone or cancel any planned events as a result of the outbreak, you could consider using alternative channels for hosting or facilitating these events, while still keeping your customers engaged. For example, you could turn a physical workshop into an online webinar, or social media channels to organize live sessions.

Photo by Berkeley Commucations on Unsplash

#4 Be there to your customers

Equip your social media team with guidelines and resources on how to best handle queries. Consider drafting template responses across Whatsapp, Instagram Direct, Facebook Messenger, and any other communication channel where your business has a presence. During the crisis, more and more consumers have turned to use apps and social media to shop and interact with brands.

It’s vital to be responsive and to provide your customers with visibility and transparency during this period. Handling a high volume of inquiries whilst ensuring responses are timely and accurate is key. Consider what information your customers will be seeking. For retail companies, it may be about their orders; for events and travel businesses it may relate to cancellations; and for gyms, educational centers and other establishments that host groups, the information may be about refund and membership pauses. Provide clarity to your audiences.

#5 Investing in community building and adapting to new needs

Our communication should focus on community-building efforts and addressing consumer’s changing needs and concerns. Community building activities are a safe way to interact with consumers and remain in front of the mind. When they start spending again they are going to spend with you.

Community building activities are a safe way to interact with consumers and remain in front of the mind. When they start spending again they are going to spend with you.

Brands also have the opportunity to use their campaign directly to address the outbreak and to show their support. Beauty brands have been particularly aware of consumer concerns, giving suggestions about how to use products to remedy skin issues caused by the prolonged wearing of face masks and highlighting antibacterial benefits.

#6 Focus on Digital Marketing Activities

In the coming months, businesses are going to become more reliant than ever on their digital strategy. Without wanting to sound too alarmist, in many cases, it will be the deciding factor in whether they make it through the tough times ahead.

Being confined at home — rather than on the road on sales visits or at events, means marketers have more time to develop digital strategies. This means researching where your customers can be found online, and how different approaches and tactics might impact your success.

The unprecedented, almost-total disappearance of all channels related to live events and conferences, and the increasing barriers to face-to-face business, pose enormous challenges. The key to resilience is the development of ongoing contingencies to mitigate this loss.

B2B companies, in particular, rely on the annual circuit of trade shows and exhibitions to network and build customer relations. For smaller businesses especially, used to getting new customers through word-of-mouth referrals or on the strength of a hard-won reputation, their loss is coming as a shock. Many businesses are also now finding themselves in the position of having potentially lost revenues through canceled events.

Of course, this means there are opportunities out there for the taking if you are a B2B supplier in an industry that has been slow to adapt to digital marketing. A key factor in resilience is adaptability. If it’s standard in your industry to go out and meet new customers face-to-face before you do business, adapting may mean opening new channels over the web or social media platforms where introductions can be made and relationships fostered. In the coming months, your prospective clients are going to be less open to the idea of letting you walk through the door and shake their hand — and no-one really has any idea how long this will last and whether this will lead to longer-term change.

Digital is likely to be the clear winner here, and companies — including ones that may not so much as had a Facebook page before — will need to move into social marketing, content marketing, SEO and influencer-led campaigns.

It’s certainly true that the coming weeks, or months — or however long this situation lasts — will be a challenging time for any company that isn’t ready to think about how they will replace the opportunities that have been lost.

Digital is likely to be the clear winner here, and companies — including ones that may not so much as had a Facebook page before — will need to move into social marketing, content marketing, SEO and influencer-led campaigns.

As long as businesses approach the shift to digital marketing strategically, there’s no reason why it should just serve as an emergency fill-in but could carry on providing long-term value when the world eventually gets back to normal. And of course, it would make companies more resilient to deal with any future pandemics.

Prepare for the worst, do your best!

Waiting to respond to the coronavirus outbreak until after it begins impacting your operations can not only hurt your bottom line but your company’s reputation as well.

Planning Ahead is Key!

While unknown abound and panic is on the rise, the best course of action for business in the face of coronavirus is to think proactively.

While the road ahead may appear to be a long one, we believe that we will be able to overcome the difficulties by working together. We would like to remind everyone to stay safe, take sensible precautions and protect yourselves first and foremost. We are with you for the long term and are committed to providing proactive, responsive, and real-time support and develop new solutions as this complex situation continues to evolve.

We want to do more. Teams across our company are working every day to help businesses. Whatever happens next, we will be working to help businesses weather this storm. Please keep safe and look out for those around you.

#SabdaCare

@sabda.creative

COVID-19 might seem Overwhelming, but it does not make Brands POWERLESS