As the coronavirus pandemic continues, business owners are unsure about how long will this phase last and how to cope with this crisis. During this uncertain economic crisis, a solid digital marketing strategy will be the deciding factor whether you make it through the tough times ahead. Small businesses that built their customer base through word-of-mouth referrals are losing out on their customers and incurring a loss. On the other hand, the relatively larger companies are at a loss due to plenty of cancelled events.
Why digital marketing is important for your business?
There is a huge importance of digital marketing in today’s scenario, why? Now that you cannot rely on building your network offline, digital marketing is the one-stop solution to make your business thrive and grow during this phase. If you have already built your brand reputation through your marketing efforts, you cannot let those efforts go into vain. Instead, brainstorm with your team and revamp your digital marketing strategy right away. Now is the time to do thorough research on where your customers can be found online and how to keep them engaged. Even the companies that haven’t used online marketing lately will have to focus on social media marketing, SEO, content marketing, and influencer-led campaigns.
How to use digital marketing to grow your business?
To cope with this global crisis, you need to adapt and find an innovative approach to market your business digitally. Now that you are aware of the importance of digital marketing in today’s scenario, here are some of the tactics you can apply to market your services.
Analyze the change in consumer’s web usage patterns
With employees working from home and students taking up online classes from home, web usage has approximately increased by 20%. According to Google reports, most people are browsing through online shopping apps but the conversions are relatively less. Also, there is a 70% increase in Facebook usage by all the generations, which implies you need to invest in your Facebook business page to engage your customers. When it comes to online shopping behavior, the McKinsey study states that consumers are spending 14% more than usual on groceries, 3% more on home entertainment and 1% more on household appliances. Also, Facebook is manually reviewing all the new ads to avoid publishing fake news related to coronavirus.
Connect with your customers in a different way
Digital marketing for small businesses is extremely important to stay connected with the existing customers and convert your visitors to potential customers. Now is the perfect time to boost your brand awareness and reach out to your target audience. Depending on your industry, you need to research about the factors that make your brand stand out. What do your customers expect from your brand? How do they want it to be delivered? How can you change your delivery method during this situation? You need to come up with some innovative ideas to deliver your services when your competitors have slowed down.
Some of the businesses have already started using digital platforms to achieve brand awareness. For instance, gyms, dance studios, and training institutes are posting free online tutorials. How will this benefit them? Though they are posting online content for free, there is a high chance that people may continue to choose their services even when things get back to normal. Also, B2B brands are making the best use of Email marketing to stay connected and build their network. When it comes to the hospitality industry, delivery services are reducing commissions, thus making online food delivery more accessible during the lockdown period.
Make changes to your marketing budget
How to use digital marketing to grow your business? If you have cut down on PPC ads and Facebook ads due to lower conversion rates, think of investing in other channels that could give long term results. For instance, you can invest in SEO (search engine optimization) and CRO (conversion rate optimization). Also, you can take advantage of people being at home to conduct online user research and gather feedback. User research is an excellent tactic to know your customers’ motivations, goals, and pain points.
SEO – This is the perfect time to focus on on-page SEO techniques to drive your target audience to your website. As your competitors may have slowed down their SEO efforts, you need to double down on SEO. What is your audience researching for? Do extensive keyword research and create engaging content accordingly. Also, optimize your web pages by making certain changes to your site content, adding new keywords, internal linking, etc.
YouTube advertising – As people are spending more time on online channels, your brand could immensely benefit through YouTube advertising. This is where digital marketing for small business comes into the picture. According to research, educational videos, cooking videos, and fitness videos are getting maximum views during this downtime.
Few other marketing strategies implemented by businesses
Here are some examples of how some businesses are innovating their marketing approach. Some companies are offering long validity gift cards and long term gym membership subscription. On the other hand, some companies are going out of their way to make a mark and contribute their level best to fight against this pandemic. For instance, Red Bull, Williams, Mercedes, and McLaren teams are assisting with the production of medical types of equipment like ventilators. Also, BrewDog – an alcohol brand is using its distilleries to produce hand sanitizers. If you want to have an edge over your competitors and be your customers’ first choice when the crisis is over, you need to adapt to creative marketing strategies.
Final words
Though the upcoming weeks and months will be a challenging period for all the businesses, you can implement digital marketing to cope with the lost opportunities. Also, this is the right time to build your brand identity and awareness at a faster pace, as your competitors have taken a back seat. Now that you are aware of why digital marketing is important for your business, get your team working on all the creative marketing tactics right away.
Penned By: Aanchal Patil
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