Looking at the Bright Side: COVID-19 and Businesses

It’s time to realize how we have been taking “touch” for granted...

It is safe to say that COVID-19 has changed our reality (temporarily). First appeared in Wuhan, today there are over 9,00,000+ cases globally as I write this article. To weather this situation, most businesses are shifting to work remotely, locals are shut, traveling is at a virtual halt, and most of us are trying to stick to our new home schedules.

When no one really knows how far this would go, how many people will get affected, businesses will need to act smart.  As a response to the current situation, the global stock market has crashed, it may affect businesses ranging from small, medium-sized to enterprises in the coming days.

So, what does the current situation has for you and how should you respond to it? I have tried to include everything in this article but before we get into the data, here are some quick stats you should know:

Organic web traffic is down in most industries:

From the last two weeks, there has been a huge drop in organic traffics from most industries.

(Source: neilpatel.com)

While industries like news, financial space experienced skyrocketed traffic, eCommerce domains received a mixed response. For example, if you sell products like diapers or wipes than you must have experienced an increase in traffic. For luxury goods like electronics, you may have experienced a drop in traffic.

Pay-Per-Click data

In the United State, Google searches experienced spikes and low jumps, but in the past week, Google’s search ad impressions began to decrease to almost 7% below average.

(Source: Word Stream)

And fewer impressions means fewer conversions.

Considering the data of the United States three weeks ago, conversion rates dropped by an average of 21%.

(Source: Word Stream)

The silver lining

The good thing I can see so far is, the paid ad campaigns’ costs haven’t gone down much.

For example, currently, there are dips in the number of people searching for flights or hotels, however, there is no drastic drop in CPC. But there is an increased Cost Per Acquisition.

In simpler words, you can still pay the same amount per click as before.

When the overall economy is predicted to get hit by 2.7 trillion dollars, experts are saying that we are going to experience the biggest recession.

That clearly means...

As a business, during this downtime, you will have:

Less competition →  Faster results → New deals

Because, even in the United States, if the market keeps going down, many of the businesses will struggle to pay off their debt, go bankrupt, get bought out, that is exploded to $75 trillion.

This means even less competition for you. 

So, it can turn out to be the biggest opportunity for you to gain the market share when it starts recovering. 

When you see that your competitors are taking it easy, that’s the time you need to run even faster.

Some quick tips to follow:

• Offline businesses, it’s time to be revolutionized!

Take this time to improve or build your online presence fast.

              Here are 4 steps to get you started:

                 1. Design a simple website

                 2. Get/Update your business on Google My Business

                 3. Maintain Social Presence

                 4. Promote your business online

- Good ads(Google Merchant)

- Microsoft Ads

- Bing Ads

- SEP

• It is time you paid more attention to YouTube and other display networks

Start by remarketing to your existing customers and visitors. Bring them back to your website and keep your brand name highlighted. When they return to your site, you are more likely to get conversions even later with Wishlist, Pre-orders.

• Start accepting Pre-Orders/Wishlist

Most of the countries are under lockdown. As a business, it is your responsibility to support this movement and acknowledge it on your website. However, it is important to keep your customers engaged with your brand because even while being at home, there will have enough time to wishlist, pre-order their products. This can work best with your existing customer base. 

For example, the E-Commerce store Myntra is appealing to customers to stay safe, and Wishlist their products.

• Adjust your existing PPC campaigns

Search trends are getting changed quickly, so make sure to check your search terms, search volumes, add negative keywords, follow COVID-19 search trends and accommodate them into your campaigns if possible.

• Revisit Device Bid Adjustments

As per Word Stream’s data, there is almost 25% of cut in the mobile searches, which means you need to revisit your device bid adjustments and keep your bids lesser for mobile users.

• Leverage Cross-network opportunities

(Source: Word Stream)

As a response to the current situation, internet usage is increasing up to 50%, which means you need to focus on other networks as well apart from Google and start advertising your business. For example, collaborating with Google Partners.

The bottom line

Apart from all this, it is time to preserve our health to come out stronger from this situation. 

At Biztech, we are operating at full-scale remotely and are there for your support. 

So, feel free to drop me a message or email to [email protected] for any queries, problems you come across. 

We are there to help... Always. 

Stay safe, Stay strong!