When the pandemic hit, many businesses had to adapt their marketing strategies in the face of uncertainty. This changed the way small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) market themselves. There are enormous shifts in consumer behaviour: no dining-in, self-collection only, and an increase in online spending habits. Businesses and marketers must constantly innovate and think outside the box in order to stay relevant during this critical time. The importance of free and affordable tools, along with digital platforms to do more effective marketing is recognisable now more than ever.

This post seeks to address how SMEs can scale their marketing strategies in the new normal with the help of Advocado’s 3 key strategies. We’ll also share how your business can do more than just survive but thrive. By conducting an internal business brainstorm and gathering merchant feedback: we have formulated 4 key strategies before the Phase 2 Heightened Alert took place.

Let’s first discuss your current customer satisfaction levels, your business’s image to the public, and current marketing strategies. This knowledge is important in order to have a full understanding of what worked and consumer behavior. Understanding your customer profile will provide you with reasons on what keeps them coming back and to tailor your offers to what they love. Taking a quick glance at your previous email campaigns offers important information: which campaigns were successful and which failed, as well as what were the differences between them?

Firstly, a key strategy we have embarked on to empower SMEs to do more effective marketing is conducting our CRM training to upskill their staff. By conducting online and physical CRM training, we have gotten raving feedback about how useful and engaging our course is in building confidence of business owners, managers, and front-line customer service staff in driving lasting customer loyalty, creating repeat customers, and increasing revenue. This season is perfect for our retailers to continuously push new frontiers and stay ahead of the curve. So when the pandemic subsides, you are prepared with important skills and frameworks to engage customers with a world-class excellence standard. Watch a really cool video here for more benefits of our Cloud CRM.

While we have invested a considerable amount of gas on new marketing efforts; each dollar was deliberate and intentional with its purpose. In critical times like these, Advocado has provided our merchants with a leg-up across diverse industries from F&B, retail, beauty, and more. We have further collaborated on 1-minute style success story videos on how SMEs can tide through this pandemic and develop meaningful marketing strategies in the new normal, learn more here. Our founders have also stepped up marketing efforts to benefit our merchants, focusing on key customer engagement lessons from SME heroes so aspiring merchants can follow in their footsteps. To see more merchant success stories, click here.

Secondly, a key strategy to be focused on is e-commerce. What’s more; the e-commerce platform Shopify integrates brilliantly with Advocado. It’s more than just paid advertising: this integration makes reaching your customer prospects and educating existing merchants easier. For merchants who only have traditional outlets, this is a great opportunity to consider. Click here to find out more. For merchants who sign up with Advocado right now, you enjoy (1) A complimentary social media design or E-Commerce banner tailored for Facebook, Instagram or Whatsapp to share anytime and anywhere. We also specialise in creating automated FAQ robots for your site that operate 24/7, as well as functions such as live countdowns/updates to flash sales.

Lastly, the key strategy in boosting digitalisation of your SME beyond the pandemic is the integration of Advocado Artificial Intelligence (AI). We have developed a sales and recommendation AI model that leverages interactions and determines the right products and offers to specific consumers at an opportune time – irregardless of consumption behaviour and interactions of consumers. Drive sales anytime, anywhere – no staff required. Advocado follows an intuitive approach in listening to merchant’s concerns which helps us modernise and diversify new channels into their once successful business model. A holistic approach has always been part of our work ethic in analysing what each individual company needs. These methods have brought empowerment in offering solutions and invaluable data that are within SMEs reach to truly transform and optimise digitally. Our hard work with Advocado AI has come full circle over the years to benefit over 500 merchants as much as possible.

We believe that AI should be completely accessible and relevant for both merchants and consumers alike. This promotes a personalised retail experience beyond imagination. For more information about our AI partnership with Global ICT provider HUAWEI and AI Unicorn 4Paradigm, click here.

With the implementation of our 3 key marketing strategies developed for SMEs to scale in the new normal, your business will be on its way in creating lasting and effective results. Schedule a non-obligatory session to speak with us now!

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