Digital Marketing in The Midst of COVID-19: Every Businesses Needs to Know
How does the coronavirus outbreak impact businesses and the digital marketing industry? Let’s see how businesses bounce back, and how digital marketing can help put all pieces back together.
The Coronavirus threat has been crossing everyone’s mind right now and it’s surely hitting each and every one of us in a way. Not directly with the disease itself but the huge impact on our way of living. It’s official, we are all living in the middle of a pandemic and a global catastrophe, and a lot of households are affected.
You could be self-isolating by yourself, staying in your household with your family, or luckier than others by working at home. Chances are, the coronavirus has already been a cause of anxiety about what the future might be and it’s affecting all of us in different ways.
I really don’t want to add fuel to the fire on this negative topic since the facts are all obvious. Businesses are shutting down, there’s a temporary hold on most income-generating operations and the world’s economy is being affected. However, in the midst of the crisis, most people have turned to the internet for a sense of community.
The question is, how long will all of this pass, and how coronavirus can affect the digital marketing industry?
Since the COVID-19 outbreak last December 2019, every government around the world is taken aggressive action to lessen the casualties and stop the spread of the said virus. Due to this pandemic virus, it created a negative impact on every business, both big and small. The challenge it brings has never occurred before bringing us into uncharted territory.
However, despite the threat of the coronavirus, every business should think of other ways on how they’ll be able to continue doing business instead of temporarily shutting down or cutting costs. But thanks to digital marketing, businesses may still be able to continue to deliver their products and services amidst the COVID-19 crisis.
Online Marketing Will Be A Big Hit
As of this moment, many countries are on Nationwide lockdown due to the spike of coronavirus cases all over the world. As we’ve seen in China and many other countries, there’s a strong mandate from the Government to Stay at home at all costs and this will lead to people diverting people to spend more time on the internet. Thus having digital ads and working on ranking your keywords on search engines will be a big thing.
Since your business’s potential customers will naturally prefer online shopping rather than leaving the house, our prediction is many businesses will turn to digital marketing for an added boost in their brand visibility. Also, since people right now are far from traveling and could be working from home, digital ads will be the best form of advertising.
Working From Home Setup in Digital Marketing
Working from home might be a question for some businesses but it’s not new anymore in the digital marketing world. Earning in the comfort of your own home has been a luxury for many digital marketers. Thanks to the internet and reliable laptops, the work-from-home setup has been more feasible for marketers.
Talking about digital, everything is done on the internet and can be easily done remotely. The primary edge of digital marketing over a remote work setup is you don’t need to deliver a physical package just like any other business since what you are selling are services and expertise. If you have a business and it’s not yet recognized in the digital world, you should start investing in SEO now.
This is the perfect time to incorporate digital marketing into your business. Why? Since most people are staying at home due to the COVID-19 pandemic, more often than not, every potential customer you’ll have in the future is on the Internet. This pandemic will end soon and we should get ready for our business to start up again after this crisis one good start that you can take is to incorporate digital marketing and build your brand.
How can Digital Marketing help your Business?
If you haven’t tried digital marketing before, maybe this time of the coronavirus crisis is the perfect time to start using it for your business. Digital marketing allows you to reach more people compared to the traditional way of advertising, and it’s cheaper too. Furthermore, all of your potential customers are probably online due to the ongoing COVID-19 crisis. With this, it will be a perfect opportunity to start building your digital presence and brand awareness campaign.
According to Johnny Chen, owner of an SEO Houston company, another good thing about digital marketing is that it makes your business continue its operation even when it’s closed. It’s like having a store where everyone can come and go at any time of the day, even if there’s a virus outbreak. With this, digital marketing provides convenience not only to your business but to your customers as well.
How to start your Digital Marketing to help your Business?
Now that you are convinced that your business needs digital marketing in times like this, below, we have listed some of the basics on how to start your digital marketing campaign.
Create a website
Similar to your physical store, your website serves as the official digital face of your business. However, make sure that its design, including the color, structure, and even the content is pleasing to the eye. A beautifully crafted web design is essential in building trust for every one of your site visitors. It’s like beautifying your storefront to make people come comfortably.
Furthermore, in this time and age, most people use mobile phones to surf the net, so we highly recommend investing in a mobile-responsive website. Also, consider the right design and functionality. No matter how beautiful your website is, if but takes more than 3 seconds to load, it would only put all your effort to waste. According to some research, users will more likely hit the back button if they don’t see anything on your website after 3 seconds, so you need to ensure that your site loads fast.
Also, your visitors must find your site easy to navigate. On the landing page or the main page, your visitor should at least be able to see the following:
- Home page
- List of product or services page
- About us/Who we are/ Meet the team page
- Blog
- Contact Us page
Optimize using Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Let’s say you have successfully created the perfect website for your business, and the next step is to optimize it using SEO techniques. SEO or search engine optimization allows popular search engines like Google to find and index your website and include it on SERP.
One common approach to SEO is through the use of keywords. You can ask the help of SEO experts when it comes to using the right keywords relevant to your business niche. The keywords you are going to use on your website will determine how search engines will rank your website on SERP and how many visitors you bring in. SEO experts also suggest incorporating your keywords in Title tags, Meta descriptions, and Heading tags so search engines can easily understand what your site is all about.
Furthermore, it is highly recommended that you also include keywords both in your website content and blog posts. However, make sure to avoid keyword stuffing since it makes your website look spammy.
Social Media
While search engines allow people to find your business using keywords, social media, on the other hand, can introduce (or promote) your business to people directly. Unlike on search engines where you have to wait for someone to type in a particular keyword related to your business niche, social media like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram enables you to connect with the right people.
Facebook Ads, for example, can make your business more discoverable by displaying your business ad to their current users who show interest in niches relevant to yours. Instagram, on the other hand, allows you to connect with your desired audience visually and interactively. Also, Twitter can help you connect with people who are looking for exclusive deals and new products similar to your niche.
There are lots of ways to use social media when it comes to promoting your business. And remember, during a time like this, all your potential clients are probably on social media right now.
Email Marketing
Email marketing is one of the oldest yet still very useful when it comes to digital marketing. According to a study, more than 34 percent of people around the world still use their email and consider it as one of their preferred methods of communication. Furthermore, email marketing is cost-effective since you don’t have to pay expensively to run a campaign.
Final Thoughts
As business owners, you might be thinking now, what type of content are people interested in the midst of coronavirus? Since in digital marketing- Content is King, as content creators and business owners, we have the responsibility to be conscious of the content we publish and how we promote businesses. Consumers nowadays prefer trusted and reliable brands and how they connect and consider their customers with the content that they publish.
