How was Digital Marketing during Covid-19?

The COVID-19 crisis has kept millions locked in their homes, and world seems to slowly be returning to normalcy after being brought to a stand-still for almost two years. Small business took a brutal hit last year, as their sales numbers plummeted. And when physical opportunities to consume were limited, people turned to the internet. Today, a lot businesses have been pushed to integrate digital marketing into their marketing strategy to simply capitalize on the market available. In this article, we’ll discuss about how digital marketing during COVID-19 times has changed and what your brand should do to establish and maintain a strong digital presence.

Change in consumer behavior

 

COVID-19 has significantly affected consumer behavior, especially in the B2C landscape. The percentage of people that are now willing to shop and interact with businesses online have grown over 49% globally, and more than 60% in the US specifically. This has opened up a lot of opportunities for brands, and the internet has potentially become the largest contributor for the top of the sales funnel for a lot of small businesses.

People looking up products and services online, reading the reviews of a brand before they interact with them, and spending time on a brand’s social media page and their website before shopping from them are all consumer trends that businesses today are closely monitoring. The leads that a brand gets from the internet is often directly proportional to the amount of value their digital space provides for the customer. For this reason, a lot of companies have upped their digital marketing efforts. According to a report from SocialBaker’s, the global social media ad spend has increased by 56.4% in the 3^rd quarter of 2020, and the trend was still going up.

What should a brand do?

After COVID-19, the digital marketing land space has become more than just a marketplace. A company’s online presence will henceforth be as important, if not more important than the traditional marketing efforts from it in creating the brand’s image. From customer engagement to brand visibility, digital media is taking brands directly to the customer’s screens, thus increasing the amount of people that interact with the brand. As a pandemic triggered response, more than a 100,000 small business shops will move from being a ‘brick-and-mortar’ business to an online business model, said a report from UBS this year.

The value of retail sales as a percentage of global retail sales before COVID-19 stood at 18.9% in the February of 2020. In just three months, by the end of May 2020, the amount of internet sales shot up to a whopping 32.8% of the global retail sales. This means one thing and one thing only. Companies now have to function online as much as they do physically, to stay afloat and make profit.

What should be your brand’s digital marketing plan after the COVID-19 crisis?

Google is now in every device, and people look up the things the need. Simply put, your brand should reach the people that are looking up problems that it’s trying to solve. Social media has become a major part in a lot of people’s days to day to life, personally and officially. Influencer marketing is as real as you think it is. Videos are vital tools to get information across these days. All of these are places that your brand should look into, if you’re looking to grow a community online.

To do this, here’s everything that your brand needs as part of its digital marketing plan:

1. An SEO friendly website that provides value and a good user experience. Regular content marketing efforts have become indispensable since Google’s algorithm rewards consistent and deep content with great domain authority and ranking.
2. A social media space where you showcase the abilities of your brand and interact with your clients. Frequent posts, community engagement and keeping your handles active will make sure that your social media handles become lead magnets.
3. Short videos get a lot of clout and helps followers understand your business better. These videos can be recycled and up-scaled to suit different platforms and target different audience.
4. Maintaining the same brand language through different platforms, design that’s aligned with your brand’s tone and colors, and personalized marketing efforts have proven to be effective in building brand loyalty and retaining customers.
5. Having a digital media consultant or a partner that helps your brand stay on top of design trends, SEO algorithms, and stay consistent with your digital marketing efforts will take your brand a long way digitally. NeuralSchema in a one stop solution that helps you with all your digital needs, from designing a logo to building an entire online brand.

If you need more clarity about your brand’s digital ventures after the COVID-19 crisis, do drop a comment below and we’ll answer it for you. Drop an email at connect@neuralschemait.com or drop us a text at +91 93445 86353. We’ll be happy to talk with you and share ideas! Happy marketing.