All over the globe, businesses, customers, and employees are concerned about the COVID-19 threat. The Coronavirus has not only affected our daily lives, but it has also had a devastating effect on the economy as many countries were forced to announce “lockdowns” for the safety of their citizens. Social distancing seems to be the best way to prevent the spread of the virus, so people are maintaining distance and working remotely. And for businesses to survive in this new normal, implementing and growing an effective digital marketing strategy is a must.
Indeed, a strong digital marketing strategy may be your company’s best way to respond to the special challenges that COVID-19 has created for businesses. While the world’s economies have been affected by the shutdown of businesses due to the pandemic, smart online businesses including e-commerce organizations, service providers, and online stores are learning to effectively work and manage their online operations remotely.
This doesn’t mean that online businesses haven’t been affected during this crisis. On the contrary, digital businesses also faced many challenges. For many companies, the digital strategy prior to COVID-19 was based on the consumer-paced transition from brick-and-mortar interactions with online business transactions. Consumer adoption of online business transactions had already been rapidly growing. But with Coronavirus, we can expect consumer behavior will be forever altered. The sudden demand for online access to products and services has exploded. Now the challenge for businesses is how to adapt at warp speed to these changing customer attitudes!
So, how can your digital marketing strategy work in these uncertain times and how can you ensure your business thrives during and after the COVID-19 outbreak? We recommend you look to a cutting-edge digital marketing agency like YellowFin Digital to help you create an innovative marketing strategy that can ensure success during all this uncertainty.
Here are YellowFin Digital’s 8 key tips for companies seeking an effective marketing strategy.
1. Focus on the changed behavior of your audience
During this unique time, it’s important for companies to focus on their customer’s new purchasing conduct and service needs. Creating powerful customer engagement can be challenging right now. But the right digital marketing agency can help you analyze audience behavior, effectively use marketplace and company data, and plan marketing strategies based on your customer’s unique requirements and search trends.
2. Implementation of advanced technology
A common challenge many businesses face is how to satisfy customers’ needs and preferences within constrained resources. But clearly, a company’s ability to deploy modern technologies and techniques is critical during this pandemic situation. The right digital business solution should allow your business to update its marketing strategy, prioritize user needs, and maintain the health of your employees and customers – efficiently and within a technology and marketing budget that you can live with.
It is all about optimizing. First, consider optimizing your budget. Are you still spending part of your marketing budget on antiquated marketing techniques that don’t work like direct mail, local radio or tv ads, or (heaven forbid) yellow pages? Isn’t it time to invest in an updated website and digital marketing instead? Then, it’s also important to optimize the technology. As people spend more time at home and lots of their time using mobile gadgets of all kinds, you really need to optimize your websites and social media advertising to connect with people in a variety of ways and on a variety of devices. An old, outdated website that looks horrid on a mobile phone is out! Instead, savvy businesses seek a responsive web design that makes their website look flawlessly on all screen sizes. YellowFin Digital helps you to plan most effective marketing strategies for the coronavirus downturn that makes you stand ahead in the digital marketplace.
3. Improve user engagement through content marketing
Content marketing involves the creation and sharing of online material (such as videos, blogs, and social media posts) that are intended to stimulate interest in your products or services. Content marketing is one of the most effective ways to create brand awareness and get people to trust your brand. Unique and relevant content can help you reach your target audience, keep them engaging with your company, and encourage them to be potential customers. Blogging, for example, can be used to interact with your target audience across various channels. By promoting such content on multiple social media platforms, you can drive top-of-funnel viewers to your website.
Leading goals achieved by content marketing
4. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
When your potential customers go online, can they find your website? Search Engine Optimization is the process of making a web page easy to find, easy to crawl, and easy to categorize. It is about helping your customers find your business from among hundreds, or perhaps thousands, of other companies. SEO is an integral part of any digital marketing strategy. SEO can drive more significant traffic to your website, boost your business, and help your organization achieve a variety of goals that include: brand awareness, increased traffic, higher conversion rates, improved user engagement, and much more.
Effective SEO requires the ongoing services of a digital marketing firm that stays up to date on cutting edge, high-quality SEO techniques. Search engines change ranking algorithms frequently, so it’s critical to optimize your website on an ongoing basis to get your site to rank up on the search engine result pages – and ensure your potential customers can easily reach you.
5. Social Media Marketing(SMM)
Social media is an integral part of digital marketing. It’s an excellent way to efficiently distribute important and updated information. A strong social media marketing strategy can enhance brand awareness and supply customers with ongoing business updates. And with more people at home during the COVID-19 event, folks are doing far more surfing on social media platforms to fill their time. Studies of world wide web traffic bear this fact out, as shown in the chart below. So, now is the right time to partner with a digital marketing agency to help you plan robust social media marketing campaigns with new ideas and strategies that will result in greater reach on social media such as Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, and more.
Increased time spent on media consumption due to the coronavirus outbreak among internet users worldwide as of March 2020.
6. Stay Connected with E-mail Notification
With folks isolated at home and filling the time with online activities, email marketing is another important, effective way for your business to connect with customers and build lasting relationships with them. So, it’s particularly important during this pandemic situation to listen to your audience and react with timely, relevant information. You can use Email notifications to stay connected to your customers, build trust, and maintain an ongoing relationship. So, serve your target audience with the clear and thoughtful details they’re seeking.. 68% of marketers use marketing automation to stay connected with the audience.
7. Robust Advertising Campaigns
During the Coronavirus pandemic, it’s likely that your key marketing messages have changed. For example, it has become important to simply let your customers know that you’re still open for business. A powerful Google Ads campaign can help you spread your key message across the digital marketplace. By creating ads that can also be shared on various social media platforms, you can drive more traffic and increase conversion rates. Depending on the services and products you offer, you should also consider creating user engaging ads. There is evidence that the Corona event will cause linear ad revenue in the United States to decline, while digital ad revenue is expected to grow throughout the 2020 year.
Impact of coronavirus on the growth of the media owner’s digital and linear advertising revenues in the United States in 2020.
8. Focus on Long Term Strategies
Our last tip is to remember to plan your digital marketing strategies for the long-haul. Although the COVID-19 event has created new customer dynamics and challenges for businesses, it’s the companies that can quickly adapt to a digital-centric economy that will survive and thrive. Focus your digital marketing on improving your brand’s visibility, analyzing and understanding customer needs and preferences, and using the latest digital marketing techniques that can work for you. Focus on long term goals and invest in advanced marketing strategies to stay ahead during these tough times.
Conclusion
It’s time to reframe your marketing strategies to include advanced digital methods and technologies. YellowFin Digital offers the support that businesses need to uncover new user requirements, find actionable opportunities, improve leads, and ultimately to boost revenue. With the YellowFin Digital marketing agency, your company can become more visible on the web. We can help you formulate more effective digital marketing strategies, ensure your clients stay connected to your business, attract new visitors to your website, and fully support your digital service needs in these tough times.
