fbpx

How Covid-19 Has Changed Digital Marketing

Many things have changed in a short time due to the impact of the coronavirus Covid-19 pandemic. All we do from the way we work, travel, interact with each other, and just about every aspect of our daily activities changed in a short while.

It should not be surprising that digital marketing has been impacted as well.

While the full extent of the pandemic is still yet to be determined, its effects on how brands to market, interact with customers, and conduct business have been very profound. More and more people are turning online for their daily needs.
While traditional marketing forms like newspaper ads, radio, and billboards still prove to be effective, they don’t reach as many people as before since most now spend large amounts of time online. Consumers are not just “surfing the web.” Still, they spend more time interacting on social media, researching, clicking on ads, checking their emails, and doing many more.
As the pandemic has caused one change or another in most industries, the popularity and exponential growth have accelerated to levels never expected pre-covid. However, it is essential to go back to the beginning to understand the present – how digital marketing has been.

 

There anyone who loves or pursues or desires to obtain pain of itself, because it is pain, but because
occasionally circumstances occur in which toil and pain can procure him some great pleasure. To take a
trivial example, which of us ever undertakes laborious physical exercise,

 

Digital Marketing Pre-Covid-19

Before the start of Covid-19, new digital marketing trends were starting to appear, some of which are video marketing, influencer marketing, and engagement-based email marketing. Clearly, with the new technological innovations that have been released over the years, digital marketing has tried to evolve to keep pace, too; for example, AI has been integrated into different aspects of digital marketing, changing consumer preferences like increasingly personalized ads and content.

However, with the coming of Covid-19, there has been a shift in consumer behavior and preferences. This made reaching and converting customers online more critical than ever. Doing this requires businesses to be at the front of digital marketing innovation.

Online Engagement Is King

While internet usage has been growing in the last few years, more and more people are spending a lot of time at home, which means they are spending more time online. People are not just turning to the web for entertainment anymore. In an era of uncertainty for businesses and individuals, many have turned to the internet for information, virtual solutions and to build on their skills. Covid-19 has impacted the digital marketing scene in more ways than one, and here’s how.‍

Everything is Now Digital

It has now become apparent to businesses that were sitting on the fence before the pandemic to go digital. With government lockdowns and social distancing rules enforced across cities, it has led to more people going the online route for their shopping rather than in-store shopping that was common before the pandemic.

Another thing that has changed is the process of brand discovery. The primary way people find businesses now is through the use of various online platforms. This has made it essential that brands begin to focus a large part of their marketing resources on building a presence online.

It has become crucial that brands begin to use multiple digital touchpoints to build on each platform’s increased traffic and increases their viewer’s chances of being discovered. Ultimately, to remain competitive and keep business flowing steadily, brands have to switch online not just to conduct business but also for brand awareness as things are no longer as they used to be with traditional marketing methods.

Budget Cuts

When the pandemic set in, it became clear that many businesses across different industries that could not transition online would fold up or shrink their operations. This led to reduced disposable income for customers who have had to deal with reduced pay cuts or had to be furloughed altogether.

This means many brands have had to significantly cut down on their digital marketing budget and employ more creative strategies to get rewards from squeezing through their reduced budgets.

One aspect of digital marketing that many marketers have been finding success in is PPC marketing, which has risen dramatically since the pandemic began and effectively maximized the marketing budget.

Visual Imagery

The kind of content marketers use in their marketing efforts have changed and may remain so until Covid-19 is confined to history in people’s minds. To further explain this, adverts showing people close to each other or encouraging physical contact are no longer typical.

The main reason for this is that we now have a new norm that changed our social interaction methods completely, so any advertisement that is being created has to reflect this so that their brand can portray itself in a way that is up to date and relevant to the expectations and values of customers.

This current trend in visual imagery will return, fade as things return to normal in the future. However, that may still take a long time, maybe months or even years, before the visual elements’ reversion in digital marketing entirely happens.

Social Media

During the pandemic, social media advertising has shot up. Many brands now see the pandemic as the push they needed to transition entirely from traditional marketing to digital marketing methods.

Many companies that have tried to switch to the social media marketing routes have experienced some growing pains. They don’t know how to do social media marketing the way viewers have come to expect platform by platform.

This sudden rise in social media marketing has also seen more micro-influencers coming on board on platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube. Because there are no so many brands competing for a sale, micro-influencers are growing in popularity since they provide a way for brands to win customers’ trust by using an influencer who can help foster adoption of their product/service.

One reason for this popularity in micro-influencers is that they offer great value for money compared to how much is invested and what returns can be in a large-scale influencer. Micro-influencers typically have a relatively small following and are easy to persuade to advertise the product/service of a brand to their small following either for a small stipend or for free if given the brand offers.

However, with micro-influencers, it makes sense to use many as possible to maximize the reach of their recommendations of a brand’s offering.

One on One Marketing

In these coronavirus times, brands have come to understand how important it is to maintain customers fully. Companies cannot afford to make one sale and never bother about retaining that customer.

It has never been more crucial for brands than now to maintain customers. Companies are no longer making one sale and then forgetting about that customer completely. They have now realized having a loyal customer base is essential for success.

A customer’s change in behavior and their available income means that brands are much more flexible with what they are offering to remain appealing to their customers and encourage them not to seek cheaper or more convenient options.

One of the things they are now doing regarding aligning with this shift is that digital marketing efforts are now directed more at individual customers, making it easier and common for brands to communicate with their customers purposefully.

This trend will remain long after the pandemic as the shift online that is happening in the world today will not die down anytime soon but will, in fact, continue to grow. Thus brands need to do all they can to remain competitive and create an experience similar to or even better than what customers would have in traditional brick and mortar retail where they can interact face to face with a brand.

This means that fast and reliable communication and targeted marketing are to be prioritized during this time, even when the worldwide quarantines come to an end. This will ensure brands can hold onto their existing customers and boost lead generation.

Growing Agencies

Since the pandemic has caused digital marketing to start growing rapidly, many digital marketing agencies found out that this is their best opportunity for attaining quick success. Due to this, the businesses they are conducting have witnessed a dramatic increase, which has led to agencies springing up in the market.

Strise Marketing Consultants is one of the marketing firms that help grow new businesses through innovative, unique, and targeted bespoke solutions to reach new audiences in the global market. Strise seeks to increase revenue and profits for its clients through digital marketing services.

Strise has more than 15 years of experience and has generated over 10 million in new revenue for small, medium, and large businesses alike. They understand the unique digital marketing needs of different industries and help generate revenue effectively through creative and comprehensive strategies. Strise helps companies drive quality and qualified traffic, converting prospects into customers using their exceptional state-of-the-art technology and professional knowledge and experience to deliver the results clients seek.

The Strise platform and team are the competitive advantage businesses need over the competition, especially in the Covid-19 time when the webspace is tightening up. Not only do they provide digital marketing solutions, but they also train and equip client employees with the latest industry trends, knowledge, and tactics that enhance their abilities and help them stay ahead.