So potentially you don’t have a physical outlet for your business at the moment that can remain open but you want to still grow and meet your targets for the year overall.

Can you make a success of your business without customer facing activity?

I guess the answer to this all depends on the nature of your business the industry you are in how resilient you are and how adaptable you’re offering is. Also, how much forward planning you have done in terms of avenues of communication with your customers. If you’ve feared the digital approach and only ‘played’ at your full marketing mix, chances are you’ll be ill prepared for our current times.

I’m still getting on with my strategies, tactics and planning for clients – we stay strong and keep going with our growth plans, perhaps just peppered with some adaptations and change of pace.

For many industries social distancing can make customer contact impossible or at least very difficult so it is important to find other ways around keeping the awareness of your brand and being front of mind for all of the right reasons with your customers, new and old.

If you can adapt your business for remote work or some form of delivery service that does not involve contact with the customer face-to-face this is great and should be maximised (of course, within Government guidelines). The opportunity should be taken to keep the customer communication going via other means such as social media, email, videoconferencing, videos in general, phone calls and suchlike. The customer conversation does not need to stop just because you cannot see them face-to-face, it just needs to be understanding and empathetic.

This is where your marketing set up is key to your success longer term. If you were relying on legacy marketing and an old school tool box of flyers, brochures and social media adverts this may hold you back.

Quarterly planning, consistency, accountability and key performance indicators are all methods of keeping your marketing alive and sense checking how relevant they are to the customer at any point in time.

It may be a good time to assess where you are with your marketing and if you are viewing it as something that is currently holding you back or that you don’t feel you have the time to invest in. It’s a good time to take stock.

Think about your bigger picture vision and where your fractures are now you are faced with a little adversity.

How do you create a pathway between your business and the customer without using face-to-face contact?

This should help you to build a contingency where you have the full marketing mix and also many communication channels. This will make your business stronger and create resilience which longer term will enhance your competitive advantage.

It is the time to be creating quarterly planners so that you have every option available to you whatever happens in the wider world. These should create focus and structure for you and your teams (if you have them).

If you need a marketing audit or even wish to do a quick marketing health check take a step over to my website and have a look at some of the areas you might want to work on. It’s quite easy for us to create a beautiful foundation for your business growth via marketing you just need to make the decision to start. Is now your time?