THE AFTERMATH EFFECT OF CORNONA-VIRUS ON MARKETING

The corona-virus outbreak is first and foremost a human tragedy, affecting hundreds of thousands of people, whereas it is having a disastrous effect on businesses and the global economy.

But let’s look at the positive side of the crisis – it’s expiry date. All crises will end one day but the important thing to do is predict the effects it will cause and adjust accordingly.

People will be making significant changes to their everyday lives to adapt to the “new normal”, causing a huge change in consumer behavior and consumption trends.

Therefore, instead of wasting time thinking about the losses the corona-virus outbreak had caused, benefit from this period to think about its aftermath effect.

For that reason, I’ll be covering in this blog post how this current situation, that will hopefully pass soon, will be affecting how businesses will be doing marketing in the future.

Covid-19 will be mainly affecting the marketing landscape as per the below 6 aspects:

1. Virtual Events & Live Streaming

Figures published by data intelligence company PredictHQ indicate that in February 2020 alone, concerns about the corona-virus led to a 500% surge in cancellations and postponements of significant events.

The offline event cancellations will urge marketers to explore digital alternatives and share online more event-like content. Marketers will have to get creative to find opportunities to deliver personal experiences to clients and customers from a distance.

This will cause marketers to turn to digital conferences and virtual events platform along with focusing more on adding social media live streaming features as a must to their communication strategy.

2. Online Marketing

Online marketing is no longer an option, it’s a must.

After the longtime of quarantine and social distancing people will acquire it as a new habit to be safe, that’s what will make in-store and outdoor advertising less effective rather than the fact of digital marketing ads and content sharing. Add to this the fact that a growing number of organizations are these days minimizing all face-to-face meetings with the inevitable result that they must change their digital strategy and turn it into their key source of lead generation.

When talking about digital channels we can’t overlook the social media channels especially LinkedIn the main hub of professionals online. Just imagine that Microsoft the owner of LinkedIn & Skype will be merging between its two owned platforms.

In my opinion this action, when done, will be definitely re-writing the future.

3. Marketing Automation

Marketing automation is yet the lowest cost, easiest, and most effective way of keeping in touch with your customers, especially after corona-virus where you will be losing the face-to-face interaction.

By automation marketing, I don’t mean sending automated spam email marketing, or broadcasting cold calling messages to get new customers. Brands should be focusing more on sending out personalized, contextualized, targeted messages to their existing customers.

They need to be keeping in touch with their customers at every touch point in their digital journey through social channels and through exploring the web.

4. E-commerce & Social Media Shops

As consumers will be avoiding physical stores and crowded gathering places, several brands – that didn’t have this option before – will tend to be shifting to online shopping options similar to having an e-commerce website and acquiring social media channels as their new online shop.

Some industries and according to the product they sell, they may use omnichannel commerce, like buy online, pick up in-store for customers who want to shop in-store but avoid crowds.

5. Top/Mid-Funnel Content

As consumers shift away from actively shopping in the short-term, businesses should investment in top/mid-funnel (awareness and consideration stages) content.

Concerning the funnel final stage (conversion) content, brands should focus on their SEO strategy since as consumer behavior changes the way users search and consume content will change as well.

6. Digital Content & Personalized Experiences

The wave of decreasing in-person meetings and communication will be leading marketers to reevaluate how they currently distribute their content and reshape their communication strategy to evolve about digital tools (social media platforms, email marketing, mobile marketing,...).

It’s not only the content sharing tools that matters but the content itself. Randy Frisch, CMO of content marketing platform Uberflip, said that a key aspect today is "maintaining personalization over the entire course of the buyer journey as a potential client moves through a company's content."

Final Though!

Brands should adopt the “test, learn, test” approach, since there will be no more one-size-fits-all approach. Brands need to be quick and creative. Measure their success, and learn from the experiment. They should be aware that their experiments should be quick, cheap, and easy to deliver, and if it doesn’t work so well, then they need to kill the experiment and move on.

Today is a great opportunity to focus on important initiatives that ensure your firm’s bright future. Keep focusing on developing your digital marketing strategy, since this is only temporary and you want to be prepared for the long-term when this all blows over.