The COVID-19 pandemic has caused disruptions that extend far beyond social distancing and self-quarantine, with its greatest impact felt within the global economy. For one, China has experienced a massive drop (about 19%) in retail sales within four months since the onset of the pandemic. America, on the other hand, has witnessed the closure of 1 in 5 major hotels.
But that’s not all…
Organizations that primarily relied on physical customer interaction to sell their products/services have borne the brunt of this global pandemic. Notably, customers who can no longer visit physical stores have shifted to online shopping, resulting in a considerable increase in global user traffic. It’s no wonder that Amazon’s stock price is at an all-time high.
Businesses, therefore, need to shift and enhance their focus on online customer engagement through comprehensive digital marketing strategies.
The most ideal digital marketing plan should enable you to:
- Effectively showcase your range of products and services to potential customers.
- Allow customers to shop for specific products/services from your vast inventory.
- Facilitate fast and efficient handling of customer queries, requests, and complaints relating to product/service provision
What Businesses are Doing
Before you make any adjustments to your current digital marketing strategy, it is advisable to check how businesses that have made some headway in your area of specialization are doing. At the moment, many of the innovative digital marketing solutions used to combat the effects of COVID-19 are focussed on live video streaming, which helps to make up for the direct customer interaction that’s no longer possible due to social distancing.
For instance, most gyms now offer online fitness classes, workers are collaborating on video conferencing platforms, people now celebrate birthdays with loved ones via FaceTime and so forth. Your business should at least incorporate live video streaming features in your current digital marketing strategy if you hope to achieve comparable levels of customer interaction prior to the pandemic.
Luckily today, we are going to show you what to do and not do as part of your comprehensive digital marketing strategy;
Don’t Default to Cuts but Expand
Most businesses in the retail, tourism, international trade, and transport industries have reduced employees, operating hours, marketing, and areas of operation due to the COVID-19 pandemic. While such a move has the immediate effect of lowering overheads, curtailing your marketing efforts leads to loss in market share arising from the gradual decrease in customer numbers.
It is important to note that physical marketing strategies such as signage, billboards, newspaper and magazine advertising are largely ineffective during this period. Instead, businesses should strive to enhance their online footprint through digital marketing.
The COVID-19 reality requires you to double, triple and even quadruple your current time and money investments to realize a comprehensive marketing strategy. Your digital marketing plan should incorporate the following aspects:
- Search Engine Optimization (SEO), which involves incorporating search-engine-friendly keywords and phrases within text and metadata descriptions for higher page ranking
- Content Marketing – which involves coming up with user-focused content for web pages, blog posts, product/service pages and so forth
- Email Marketing – which involves coming up with targeted email product/service campaigns and consistent customer follow-up strategy
- Pay-Per-Click Advertising – this strategy allows you to boost your online visibility by paying publishers to post your ads on affiliate websites
- Video Marketing – which involves incorporating descriptive video content along with blog posts, product/service pages and so forth.
High Internet Use Does not Guarantee Organic traffic.
While the COVID-19 period has seen a high level of internet usage as more people shop online, internet use is far from being evenly distributed. Furthermore, the few established sites that attract most of the current high internet traffic are hard, if not impossible, to compete with directly. It would be best to focus your digital marketing efforts on social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Youtube. Social media advertising allows you to target people who are more likely to buy the products/services you are selling, i.e., people with a higher conversion rate.
Notable strategies for social media advertising include:
- Create unique and insightful SEO content to help you rank high on webpages
- Embark on promotional social media campaigns
- Embed Live Video features on your website for more personalized customer interaction
- Make use of social media trends and hashtags
Offer Quality Propositions for Products/Services
Use quality SEO content to promote your product/service offerings and incorporate high-quality videos, animations, and GIFS in product/service descriptions.
Luckily, you won’t have to create this quality content in-house, but you can use expert freelance graphic designers and brand animators. Moreover, you can hire professional and experienced writers to create compelling content for your website, blog, and social media pages, and encourage sharing of your content. You should note that the more engaging, factual, and insightful your content is, the higher the number of people who are likely to see it via referrals.
Take Away:
Here is the point….
While the COVID-19 pandemic has invoked fear in most organizations, this period is the opportune time to modify and expand the scope of your current digital marketing strategy.
Don’t be like most business people who hurriedly lock down the hatches whenever a pandemic precedes a turbulent period of economic instability. Instead, you should establish a good plan to help you manage and grow your business during this pandemic.
