The impact of Coronavirus on digital marketing and effective solutions

30-second summary:

• Digital marketing is not a quick-fix solution to gain momentum. It does not give you visibility overnight. If you are using digital marketing techniques such as search engine optimization (SEO) or social media marketing (SMM).
• Consumer behavior has changed drastically. We all see a different consumer today. 
• The pressing question remains, “What strategies should digital marketers follow?”  
• Co-founder of Lbswebsoft gives you a quick look at some strategic steps that can help your digital marketing and ecommerce efforts during Coronavirus times.

The outspread of coronavirus disease (COVID 19) has affected everyone on the planet. This is for the first time in the history of mankind when more than 70% of countries – which include developed, developing, and underdeveloped nations – are under lockdown. It has already caused huge unrest in the global economy. 

People have lost their jobs and are left with no or limited sources of income, companies specifically small and medium cap businesses are shutting down. Giants are putting many of their processes on hold. A number of government organizations, too, have been closed down as a preventive measure for coronavirus spreading. 

How the coronavirus is driving new changes in digital marketing 

Coronavirus lockdown has halted many business processes starting from manufacturing, supply chain to logistics, and marketing.  

Some businesses have closed or paused their digital marketing activities temporarily, citing the health concerns of their employees. If you are on that side, what you will have in the end is drastically decreased online traffic, sales, engagement, conversation, and pushed down search ranking. 

Digital marketing is not a quick-fix solution to gain momentum. It does not give you visibility overnight. If you are using digital marketing techniques such as search engine optimization (SEO) or social media marketing (SMM) – I believe you are already aware that your implementations take three to four months’ time to give results. 

So, if you choose to stop working on digital marketing, you would see a severe downfall after a quarter or so.  

The solution

This is a difficult time for us all. You as an employer will need to keep your workers motivated in order to ensure that the work does not gets delayed or stopped. Asking to work from home will be a great support for your employees, as well as for your digital marketing. 

But the most important question here is, what strategies should digital marketers follow?  

Consumer behavior has changed drastically. We all see a different consumer today. As mentioned above, markets are closed, necessities are out of stock or being sold at 30% to 50% increased rates, buyers and their families are staying at home – some of which have lost their jobs and have limited sources of earning.  

This behavioral shift has changed the market scenarios as well. We have a completely different market to serve. 

With that said, we will need a different approach to marketing. 

Develop a short-term strategy and see how the market conditions behave

 A pro tip for digital marketing is – keep it flexible. If there are provisions for alterations in your digital marketing strategy, you would be able to adapt to any situation. 

Which strategy suits your business and which doesn’t – it can only be measured after it is implemented. Your digital marketing strategy should be flexible enough to come out of any situation. 

Moving back to the ongoing corona situation, you will need to develop a different, short-run strategy to implement during the lockdown. You can start by: 

• Understand the audience 
• Assess whether your product is in demand 
• Evaluate the amount of website traffic and its source 
• Notice how the user behavior on your website 

Prepare a marketing strategy around these factors. If your product is in demand, you can draw in a huge amount of traffic through your local implementations.  

And if it doesn’t fall into that category, you can lure them in by offering discounts and lockdown special offers like Neil Patel did by making many features of his Ubersuggest free and iCustomLabel.com did by offering free shipping during the lockdown. 

More focus on pay-per-click (PPC)

Believe it or not, cost-per-click (CPC) is proving more yielding for marketers during the corona lockdown. Since the supply of goods is limited, there are fewer ads on leading marketing channels including Google Ads, Twitter Ads, and Facebook Ads. 

The traffic and searches both are high, but the competition and with that, the cost of paid ads have taken a downward trend. It could be a great opportunity for your brand to gain exposure and increase traffic and sales. 

You can combine SEO, SMO with PPC in your digital marketing strategies. Here is how to get started on your per-per-click: 

• Identify your ad and campaign objectives 
• Discover the best marketing channel 
• Determine your funnel 
• Observe the results and refine your implementation 

Organize webinars and webcast

Webinars and webcasts have emerged as a great marketing tool in recent. 

In fact, it is the most engaging content type today. Stats show that more than 80% of users prefer watching brand videos rather than reading their blogs or scanning through their social network text updates.  

You can take this opportunity to engage with your audience and get new sign-ups and sales, eventually. 

If your physical events such as product launch, marketing seminars were canceled or postponed, through which you had plans to gain traction, you could still go that way. 

Just prepare a content strategy, choose the right platform, and assemble the pieces of equipment, and you are ready for your webinar or webcasting. 

Quick tips to help you get started with your webinar and live streaming marketing:

• Always do a live-run test beforehand 
• Use the questions asked for your blog topic 
• Promote the event across social networks in advance 
• And most importantly, plan the content and context of your webinar well 

The last point will require you to dig the trends and find an expert or two to be present at your event. 

Bottom line

When traffic and sales are down, a large number of marketers forget their customers. What they have their focus on is – sales, sales, and sales. 

But, who gives you sales? Your customers, of course. During the Coronavirus lockdown, people aren’t actually buying much. 

If you forget them, you will lose them. And getting new customers after the lockdown is over is going to be an intricate affair. So, the best practice is to – never actually forget them. 

You can stay connected with them on social networks. Just for a friendly reminder: Social network is a marketing channel – but that does not mean you should always use it to market your brand. Rather, use it to empathize with your followers, listen to their stories and tell them yours, and respond to their comments and mentions. 

Many brands are using social networks to show how they are contributing to the wellness of the communities during the corona crisis. If you are also doing social work, social media is the right place to tell everyone about it. It will help reestablish you as a responsible brand – which without a doubt would be a one up for your marketing success.

Birbahadur Singh Kathayat is an Entrepreneur, internet marketer, and Co-founder of Lbswebsoft. He can be found on Twitter @bskathayat.

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