Commerce in the UK has been massively suppressed since the UK government started introducing social distancing measures and social restrictions in March. Almost every business has felt the effect of the crisis financially, and many companies are now, in effect, closed and hibernating – hoping to survive on their resources and the government’s financial assistance long enough to be able to reopen and recover in a few months.

In order to grow your enterprise from its current position, you need to bring in business from new customers. This might seem obvious on paper but finding ways to attract prospects and turn them into loyal (i.e. repeat) customers requires understanding them and how best to influence their decisions. As such, here are some of the factors you should be looking at in order to keep attracting customers.

While making a one-off sale can be considered a success, having a customer base that is loyal and makes multiple purchases is the ideal you should be aiming for. As such, your marketing strategies should be focused on attracting the category of customers who will be most likely to form a continuous relationship with your business and provide a boost to your overall revenue.

To expand, and even to survive, every SME has to become comfortable with selling their services. According to the Office for National Statistics (ONS) 89% of UK businesses that started in 2017 survived into 2018, yet of those businesses that started in 2013 only about 42% were still operational. For your business to survive long-term you must be aware of how best to market yourself as well as be flexible enough to engage in newer methods for marketing and sales as they become available.

If all goes to plan, in 2-3 months the UK will start to lift the social restrictions and the UK can go back to work. We all expect there to be a surge in demand when this happens, but it won’t be business as usual - this crisis will change business practices forever and your business will need to adapt to the new world.

Greetings from the team at JDR! It's been a hectic couple of weeks in the aftermath of the Coronavirus outbreak, and we've had to make some rapid changes to the way we work. All of our team are working remotely, and we're anticipating even more changes in the coming weeks. You've probably had to do the same in your own business, so we're all in the same boat.

It makes us miss the days of the relentless Brexit updates!

Let’s talk about investing in the future of your business. I always remember the Bill Shankly quote which was to “strengthen while you're ahead”. In other words, he bought players before he needed players. He reinvested in the squad before he needed to. As a business owner, you have to do the same thing. Economically, we're in uncertain times, with Brexit AND the coronavirus outbreak worldwide. No doubt the businesses that succeed will be the ones that are efficient, financially well-managed, plus, well-managed from a team and employee perspective. Most importantly, for a business to succeed is to also have a highly effective sales and marketing team that can go out to win customers and beat the competitors.

As we enter a new decade, while certain social media platforms and apps have continued to rise in terms of popularity, emails have remained a consistent and reliable method for marketing. Additionally, marketing automation has allowed for more ways to create email content to appeal to your customer base. Here are four email marketing trends you should be aware of for 2020.