As a small business owner impacted by COVID-19, what can I be doing right now to keep my business top of mind with customers and continue to bring in revenue?

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I don’t need to tell you what an unprecedented time this is for small businesses. The resilience, creativity, and generosity I have witnessed among the local shops in my own community is incredible.The owner of the bakery where I ordered my daughter’s first birthday cake is also a registered nurse, and she stopped taking orders so she could support on the front lines. An Italian restaurant about a mile away from my home has set up a donation fund to help their servers and staff. A farm to table restaurant by my train stop has transformed into a small marketplace for neighbors to pick up the essentials without having to brave the big grocery stores.It can be hard to see now, but this will end. Shops will open back up. Foot traffic will resume. Diners will fill tables and shows will go on. Your question is a good one and exactly how you should be thinking in order to make it to the other side of COVID-19. Our team of global marketers put our heads together to create a list of a few impactful things small businesses can be doing today:Staying top of mind with customersClaim yourGoogle My Businesslisting:Google allows businesses to own their profile, providing information to customers on location, hours, menus, contact information, events, and more all within the search engine results page or on Google maps. If you already own your listing, here are a few recommendations for optimizing during COVID-19:Update your hours: If you’re temporarily closed or have shortened hours, you can post specialty hours for your business. This won’t affect your regular hours, but instead, allow you to highlight a temporary condition.Get extra visibility through posts:Showcase your unique offerings such as the sale of gift cards, discounts and deals, curbside pick-up, or even safety and hygiene practices through posts attached to your business profile.Edit your attributes:You don’t have to be a restaurant to offer curbside pick-up. If you’re a hair salon offering DIY solutions or a children’s retailer providing age-based activity grab-bags, Google offers ‘attributes’ – a menu of characteristics or services your business provides. A few examples of available attributes to choose from: “Delivery,” “Curbside pickup” “Women-led,” “Active military discounts,” and “Pay ahead.”Show your best self with photos:Google buckets your business imagery into categories. If you’re offering unique packaging or services, take a few photos and upload them to your ‘product photos’ group. While you’re at it, use this time to upload more current interior and exterior photos, or even team photos to show off your amazing staff!Put yourself in your customers’ shoes:What do they need right now? I’ll tell you what I need – a manicure, activities to entertain a 1 year old that don’t involve screen time, and a dinner idea that does not include pasta. I am devouring content on all these topics right now. A few ways you can provide value to customers are:Share your expertise with your customers:Offer tutorials for at home hair trims or crafting the perfect latte on a stovetop, email recipes for the popular dishes at your restaurant, host virtual bar trivia through Instagram stories, or livestream your yoga class. This won’t take away business in the future, it will build rapport and loyalty.Get creative with your packaging:Offer family style dinner orders instead of just individual meals; don’t just prepare sandwiches, but sell the sliced deli meat; instead of making cookies, put together all of the ingredients for kids to make their own batch; create a bundle for a simple makeup look for video conferencing.Give customers at-home activity ideas and match your product to it: 'Organize your own wine tasting and here are some wines and cheeses to start,' 'cook from a new country each week and here is a recipe and links to all of the food items you’ll need,' 'tips for spring cleaning your closet out and links to the staple items you need to keep in it.'Stay active on social media:Just because your shop isn’t open, doesn’t mean people aren’t interested in staying connected. You can use your social media accounts to:Highlight your people:Share personal stories about your employees to help customers connect with them on a human level.Join in on popular hashtags:Have you seen the #firstphotochallenge going around? Share the first photo of you at your store or you with your first customer and tell the story of your business.Showcase your products:Assemble an outfit, cook a tasty dinner, or capture your hair before and after using a dry shampoo – and then share those images and descriptions with your followers. If someone posted a photo of spaghetti and meatballs right now, I would order it for dinner (please reference previous comment about non-pasta dinner ideas needed)!Get feedback:Use this time to ask your customers what they'd like to see from you when you reopen. Maybe it's bringing back an old favorite dish, or a riff on a new trend. Open the conversation to see how you can prepare for reopening, via an Instagram Story poll or Facebook post.Be genuine and empathetic in your communication:I am sure you have no less than10 emails a day in your inbox that start with “I hope you’re well”or “we’re here for you,” and the next sentence is selling you something or self-congratulatory. Don’t be like those companies! Break through the noise by focusing on your customers and their needs. Support them, don’t sell to them. See them, don’t recognize yourself.Bringing in revenueMake it easy for customers to get ahold of you: With limited hours and fewer staff, it can be hard to always be there when the phone rings – but being accessible is important right now. Allow customers to contact you in multiple ways and prioritize your response time as a key differentiator. A few ideas for communication are:Google My Business messaging: Within the Google My Business app, you can turn on messaging for customers to reach you outside of a business phoneline. You can set-up an automatic reply to manage expectations on response time.Messaging apps and social media: Whether it’s Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, or WhatsApp, these are the platforms where your customers are spending their time right now. In fact, messages on WhatsApp have quadrupled.Good old-fashioned email: The last thing a customer wants right now is to land in a contact form blackhole. Offer your email address for direct communication and refresh your inbox often. A quick back and forth will make the difference for a generation of shoppers used to instant satisfaction.Offer a special on gift cards today: You probably need cash right now and gift card purchases would help with that. Encourage your loyal customers, whom you know will be back when you open, to purchase a gift card for a loved one working on the front lines, their child’s teacher or nanny who they undoubtably have a new level of respect for, or a family member that they miss. That gift card purchase can help you now, but also create a new customer for the future.Don’t go it alone: There are many people trying to solve for the same thing you are, so connect with them and team up. A few ideas:Reach out to your local chamber of commerce or neighborhood association: Your community wants you to succeed and may already be organizing programs. My Alderman’s office is advertising Take Out Thursday and encouraging everyone to order in. Make sure your business is included in any promotions or campaigns.What’s the peanut butter to your jelly? Some things just go better together. If you’re a local wine shop, offer a 10% coupon to the Italian restaurant next store. If you’re a home décor boutique, advertise virtual design services from a small interior decorator in the neighborhood.Consider new partnerships: Take advantage of the bigger reach and advertising budgets of ecommerce platforms. If you’re a restaurant, establishing a presence on DoorDash or GrubHub could help boost your visibility and potentially open a new revenue stream. Or, if you’re a retailer, it might be an opportune time to explore options like Boo.st or Etsy.Bonus: Take advantage of free toolsMany companies offer a free small business tier normally, but now more than ever companies are offering their products for free. A few helpful tools to keep in mind:Canva — a super simple graphic design tool for creating everything from images for social media to flyers.Mailchimp — (free for 2,000 contacts) – if you have a customer list, you should stay in touch with them through email.iMovie — video can be a great way to personally connect with customers right now. This app comes free on your iPhone for quick editing.G Suite — staying connected with your team is essential. Google is offering the enterprise edition of their G Suite for free right now.Thank you to Whitney Kaspers, Carl Hulsey, Lauren Pavic, Becky Lin, Colleen McHenry, Jake Barker, Callie Furste, Javier Valdivia, and Christine Germino for their contributions to this Answer.