Eastlife Autumn 2020

Business101
Business tips to stay visible in a remote world
There’s no doubt that businesses were forced to rapidly adapt how they operate
when the COVID lockdown slammed into our world of work. The shift from working
practices that were built upon the face-to-face interactions to digital-powered remote
environments was fast and is likely to leave a longer legacy of remote working adoption
in the future.
Although many are embracing the home working and teams are finding new ways to be
efficient, one of the most crucial areas of doing business is still finding its feet – the task
of finding new business. Sales teams have had many of their typical lead-generation
and business-winning activities whisked away due to the inability to connect in person,
and so they are having to find a new normal that helps to drive interest from new
customers or clients.
In a remote new business setting, visibility is key. People are spending, work is being
won and pounds are still being spent. But unless you are only hoping to win work from
your own network or existing clients, ways need to be found that ensure you are top of
the pile when your customers start searching.
Written by Kirsty Jarvis,
Founder & CEO at Luminous PR
www.luminouspr.com
The good news is that being visible in a remote environment is doable, but you will
need to put a sharp focus on working out how to get noticed, and where your potential
new clients hang out in an online environment. Online media consumption went
through the roof during lockdown and has shown no sign of tailing off, so it’s important
to be able to line yourself up to be able to take advantage of an appetite that is growing
and here to stay.
Firstly, if you haven’t fully embraced social media yet, now is the time. Businesses
should be looking open and busy to the outside world, so make sure that you are
sharing case studies, company news and things you are doing from a CSR perspective
that might make you relevant to any business looking for your services. This will force
you to think cleverly about your content and blog strategy too. Putting the insight and
clever thinking into words that can be shared and might catch the attention of a target
client should be at the heart of your plans. What matters to them? Can you show that
you understand the challenges they are facing? How can you show them that you are
the experts and the only ones to call?
Social media and Google also offer you lots of options to advertise your thoughts and
services in clever ways, giving additional opportunities to put your brand and your
thinking in front of the people that are not only relevant, but who are also searching for
you. The audience targeting is sophisticated and with the right plan, your leads will be
delivered to your door without the need for face to face networking or prospect calls to
empty offices.
Finally, if new potential clients don’t know you yet, be aware of how much research they
will do about you before they make a decision to hire you, or even pick up the phone.
Think about how you present to the world in an online environment. How can you find
ways to show your credibility and validate your expertise? Think about ways where
other parties can help you be relevant and expand visibility of what you have to say. PR,
virtual speaking engagements, webinars and contributing thought-leadership articles to
publications that are respected by your target clients are all things that help you to stay
forefront of people’s minds.
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