7 Ways To Get Digital Marketing Clients During Pandemic

It’s a tough task, getting clients during this pandemic. When businesses are running out of their cash reserves, it is extremely difficult for them to pay for something that may, at best, ensure their future sales.

This is not an exhaustive or ultimate guide that ensures you get a digital marketing client during this pandemic. These are extremely uncertain times, and you may or may not get any at all.

But don’t worry, it’s not you. It’s them.

Marketing activities are being dropped everywhere. For most businesses, the priorities have shifted towards sustaining or even surviving this pandemic rather than scaling or growing.

As such, agencies are losing clients. Freelancers are losing projects. A study by Marketing Week found more than 59% of marketers in the UK had their jobs scaled-down. And 32% of them have had theirs made redundant altogether.

All in all, it’s a bad situation for marketers. Among countless other professions, of course.

For most, especially in Nepal, the focus has been on preparedness for a post-pandemic scenario.

The discussions I’ve heard are mostly about how should their activities evolve, what should they be doing differently and how can they adapt more quickly to the new environment after things start getting back to normal.

However, nothing so far has implied that things will be normal sooner rather than later. It may even get worse.

But you cannot throw your hands up and say “it is what it is”. As a digital marketer, there are things that you could be doing right now despite the bad situation.

I’ve previously written about how you should be approaching digital marketing as a whole during this pandemic. And also how you should continue to take your content marketing forward. Some ideas for getting clients this pandemic can be derived from them as well.

This post is intended to give you a direction in terms of how to approach businesses or brands for your services. And, along the way, hopefully, help you endure whatever this pandemic throws at you.

I’ve gathered below 7 things that I think you should be doing to try and get digital marketing clients during this pandemic.

Like I mentioned before, getting clients right now may be far more difficult than you can comprehend. But, I believe, following the processes below will give you enough experience and feedback to improvise, and enable you to continue doing what you love.

Advertise Your Services

Love it or hate it, advertising is one of the best ways to reach more of your target audience to try and get the results that you want.

In this case, a client for digital marketing.

While I’ve already talked about whether or not you should be advertising during this pandemic (you should if you can, and sensibly), we are still getting more and more insights from around the world on why you should be.

85% of people who participated in a survey by GlobalWebIndexsaid they wouldn’t mind seeing normal ads from brands. And by normal they mean ads that are not saying anything about COVID-19. Not even raising awareness or asking for pledges.

Digital Gurkha and KTMRush are doing it right now, and the latter on multiple platforms too.
Now I do not know if the ads run by the agencies mentioned above worked for them or not. The success of ads depends on more than just pouring money on them. But I do believe that they were onto something with that mentality and probably achieved, or are achieving, their goals.

That being said, do make sure that your ad feels empathetic rather than enforced.

Find Brands that are still Boosting

A lot of brands are cutting their expenses on marketing… except the ones that are still boosting.
I am using the word “boosting” here for lack of a better word, and most of them are probably just boosting as well.

Like Mato Nepal by Golyan Agro. They were literally using a newspaper cutout about their services as an ad, jeez.

The point is if you can offer them a better advertising structure, better quality content, and overall better execution of their campaigns then go for it.

Cold calling, cold emailing, or even cold DMing. Don’t leave any stone unturned, I say.
Focus On Brands Selling Essential Goods

This is somewhat related to the point above. Most businesses that are pushing ads right now, sensibly, happen to be essential businesses. Or delivery businesses.

I strongly believe that businesses dealing with essential goods are in a perfect position to not just invest in but expand their digital marketing activities during this pandemic.

Sasto Deal, Daraz, Nimbus Nepal, Mato Nepal, etc. all fall into this category.

But there are more. Every day I come across businesses that offer something new, different or something way more convenient. The ones on my feed mostly have been SMBs offering homemade solutions.

I bet there are more than a dozen businesses in Kathmandu right now that offer frozen momo deliveries. Homemade Momo Nepal being one of them.

Go Through your Email List

This one will mostly apply to businesses, or agencies, that have been in the industry for some time.

That contact list you have lying around? Start communicating with them. Offer them a solution that they aren’t expecting, but are hoping for.

What type of solution you offer is entirely up to your business decision, but make sure it’s an affordable one. That is the only way you have a chance of grabbing a deal in the present scenario.

The objective, in my opinion, should be to get your foot in the door with the client and maintain a good relationship coupled with providing good services. This is so that they may choose you when they want to continue, or recommend you to their friends.

This process of warm calling or emailing may also help you understand what are the general requirements of businesses at the moment. It will ensure that each conversation becomes more efficient than the one before.

Bonus idea: re-market to your existing database of emails or contacts, or even use a lookalike to find similar businesses that have trusted you before.

Don’t Just Sell Advertising

Advertising requires investment from the client. To be precise, additional investment other than your normal agency charges (if you do not depend on commission or percentages based on ad spend).

In my experience, that has always been one of the more important factors that the client has to come to terms with before deciding to give you their project.

So by saying “I will advertise for you”, it is highly likely that the client may take it as “I will make you spend more money”. And the situation of the pandemic may do the decision making for them, rather than the clients themselves.

Rather, pitch them content marketing. Educate them that this is the right time to try and engage with their followers or customers. Whether it is through social media, blog posts on websites, video platforms or podcasts. Any kind of content may help the brand take off if they’re relevant and cover the concerns of the customers.

You can follow your go-to guru for building content marketing strategies that work during this pandemic. But I will leave this brilliant piece by Content Marketing Institute here.

You could also go for social media moderation, management, website management, etc. There could be so much more you can pitch than just advertising.

Be Creative with Various Marketing Mediums

This can be a subset of the point I made above about content marketing. But the difference is that here, rather than educating the clients about newer forms of content they’re not aware of, I am asking you to consider exploring new platforms, to broaden your horizons.

Think of it this way: if you have video-making and cinematography resources, find all the platforms that can be utilized for videos, even the ones you’ve never ventured into before. And approach businesses for the same.

Like, maybe, you know… TikTok?

If there is a brand that has a song, theme or a jingle, go for it. Pitch them a video series promoting the same theme song and possibly start a campaign. Of course, this would require you to go out of your scope of marketing channels You may have to reach out to TikTok influencers, find suitable metrics for measuring the success rate of the campaign, and so on.

But the effort is worth getting a client, isn’t it? And that portfolio may snowball you into getting more clients.

Of course, this was just an example. It can be applied to other types of platforms like switching to podcasts, switching from images on Instagram to videos on YouTube, etc.

It may even mean pitching to brands that have never invested in online platforms before. The type of pitching may be different, but the context is the same: you’re promising them to switch to a new platform in order to build an audience that they never thought was possible. All within the boundaries of your own resources.

Utilize Your Skills

This one goes a little wider than the theme of the post but stick with me.

You’re a digital marketer. That means you are filled to the brim with skills. Social media marketing and management, social media advertising, search ads, display ads, YouTube ads, email marketing, graphics and motion designing, web development, content marketing, etc. The list of skills goes on, and you’re definitely into more than one of these skills.

Make use of them. Does someone require small social media content? Say yes. Same for a video, or a piece of design, a landing page, a website, an email copy, a blog post, etc. It can be any small piece of your skill that you can spare to get a connection and ultimately establish them as a client.

You could also utilize platforms like Fiver and Upwork. It shouldn’t come as a shock that freelancing and remote working numbers are on a rapid rise right now. People there are getting clients during this pandemic because that’s where the employers are lurking.

The point is don’t shy away from even the smallest of works.

As marketers, when we say meaningful engagement with customers now will have a big impact post-pandemic period, shouldn’t the same apply to us and our clients as well?

Establishing a relationship, combined with good service even for minor projects can not only help you sustain better but leave an impact in the future.

How have you been getting digital marketing clients during this pandemic? Do you agree with the suggestions above? Or would you want to add more to it? Let us know in the comments below. Connect with me on LinkedIn or Twitter to have more conversations.