How to Best Serve Your Clients During COVID-19

I hope you're doing well and I hope you're staying safe and healthy during quarantine. I hope  that you’re thriving at home with your family around or in isolation by yourself or whatever your situation is. I hope that you're adapting well.

What's been really interesting for me is that I've been working from home for 15 years so I feel really fortunate that I'm able to continue pretty much on a normal basis. The only change is my husband and kids are home.

I’ve noticed that many people in the PR industry are stepping up to serve their clients and come up with creative and interesting ways to help their clients stay relevant. 

We’ve Created a Free Helpful Resource

We’ve created a free ‘Covid Ignite Crisis Support’ bundle of resources. This is a resource about all our media contacts that we reached out to who are open to receiving pitches. We asked them what they’re focusing on and how we can continue to serve them. And we asked them what they’re working on that we can help support them with.

We took all the responses and put them into this resource and as we get more information I will add it to this document. 

Included in this resource are editors with their contact information who are looking for certain stories. If those stories have passed you can tweak those angles and make them relevant for your clients. 

Also there are contacts who are open to receiving pitches. 

You can still be helpful and supportive at the same time as being sensitive at this time. 

Keep Offering Your Services

There are still opportunities for you to serve and support your clients no matter what industry you're in. We're seeing agency owners that are stepping up with creative ways to help their clients pivot. For example, catering companies are pivoting to be home meal delivery companies. And restaurants opening up as grocery stores to sell their supplies.

Those who are doing it successfully are still struggling but the key is to get to the other side of this. When it ends you’ll be able to have a business that you can then repair and grow and keep it thriving.

You can offer your services as a way, now more than ever, to help clients survive this challenging time. 

We saw this in 2008 with the recession and our agency was really busy helping our clients share their messages. We actually got new business during that time. 

I just got a new client  three weeks ago so clients are still looking for support right now. They need us as professionals to help them navigate these challenging times.

The Resource I mentioned can help you stay informed and lead and guide your clients which will make you invaluable right now. 

Companies are cutting budgets or even laying people off. What can you be doing to help your clients gain market share and stay top of mind and relevant in the eyes of their consumers. 

Several people in our group are posting that they are getting new business right now. I hope that serves as inspiration for you to know it’s okay to pitch your services right now. 

Help Your Clients Stay Connected 

Right now is still a good time to help businesses as they need what we have to offer more than ever. As a PR pro you can help clients pivot right now and your business will remain sustainable and help you get to the other side. Then you’ll have a healthy business and solid foundation to build on when the economy starts to recover.

You can still drive your clients goals forward by being empathetic. You can be a strategic contact for them so that you can help them navigate these waters with empathy. 

Reach out and see what happens because you can access people that may otherwise not have paid attention to you or your pitches. They are usually too busy to look at pitches, but now they have more time. 

We're seeing tons of press convert. We had the best month we've ever had media wise for one of our beauty brands. They launched a new product. We had the client showcasing her new lipstick and her new color cosmetics collection over zoom and she loved it. 

I can see that there will be a lasting change with this in our industry where  things will be a little bit more streamlined and a lot more things will happen virtually because people will see that this is an effective way to do business.

So think how you can utilize the ways that people are connecting right now to help your clients stay connected.

Turn Problems Into Opportunities

Skilled PR professionals are seeing opportunities where other people are seeing problems.

Look at what other people are viewing as problems.You can change it into an opportunity and a way to solve problems for your clients. 

Hone in on your skills as a PR professional and keep offering to solve their problems.

Related: How to Gain Clarity and Create a Strategy For Your PR Agency During Uncertain Times

Be A Partner With Your Client

Demonstrate to your clients right now that you are a partner to them for the long haul. Maybe go half rate for a couple months and continue on with your core services. Do whatever you have to do to keep the client so that on the other side of this you can continue working with them and supporting them in some capacity.

They will appreciate you and see how you helped them through the most challenging time they've ever experienced in their business. 

My entire focus and purpose right now is helping all of you survive this hard time with your business. I want to help you keep your business intact and sustain your business during this time. 

Reach out to me and our community for any help you need right now.