The drama that is 2020 doesn’t seem to end. It’s only March and it already feels like the season finale of dramatic horror show on Netflix. Unfortunately, when owning a business, we can’t just sit back and wait but have to be concerned about how we survive and make the best of the current situation.
Statistics seem to indicate that lots of businesses reduce their marketing budget these days as purchase intent is said to decrease in our declining economy. While this appears reasonable I think it makes sense to keep digital marketing campaigns going, or even increase your digital marketing efforts. Here are a few ideas on how that could be done.
Don’t be too opportunistic
First things first: We’re not here to capitalize on other’s misfortune. If we are fortunate enough to not be stuck by the virus that’s terrorizing the whole world right now we shouldn’t be thinking about how to make some extra money out of this situation, we should help or, at least, stay home and help flatten the curve.
Moreover stats seem to indicate that companies that act too opportunistic lose consumer trust. Nobody likes those taking advantage in bad situations, right? So don’t be that guy that people point at and say ‘stay away from this brand, they tried to take advantage of us’ .
Virtual Events = engagement
I hate online meetings! I’m usually very anxious every time a Zoom or Microsoft Teams is about to start and you won’t see lots of facebook or instagram live events in my private timeline.
From a marketing point of view however those events are exactly what you should be focusing on. People in isolation are missing one thing that live events give them: The feeling of being and belonging together. We can see that right now during the already famous DJ D-Nice instagram live sets. It’s a place to come together and share happiness for at least a little bit.
Make use of that! That only works however if you have something to give – not to sell. So don’t make those events about selling services and products, make them about bringing people together. The audience will love your for that, follow you, recommend you, and, if they ever need something that you offer, come back to you!
What you could do during live events you ask? Be creative! Concerts are hip right now, so are workouts but who is to say what’s the next big thing? Live cooking? Dancing (is already big on TikTok)? Poetry? Writing? Painting (Bob Ross reloaded)? Be creative!
Boost Brand Awareness
What are people doing right now? Staying at home, right! What are they doing at home? Well besides Netflix & chill? Exactly, they are spending time online, quite likely on social media.
These days we see more users than ever browsing online to pass time. Verizon just reported they saw a 20% spike in web traffic and big platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, Netflix and many more agreed to slightly reduce the quality of their visual content to help accommodate the increase in traffic in Europe.
This presents a unique opportunity for you. There are more people at home ‘waiting’ to discover interesting and related content. So it’s on you to reach them and show them why they should follow and interact with you. This means now is the time to re-define your target audience, improve your customer personas and then get after them with perfectly targeted social media campaigns that stand out from the crowd. #creativity
Once you increased your reach don’t just relax and party though, remember that engagement leads to conversions!
Remarketing
One of the most shocking e-commerce statistics out there says that around 75% of customers abandon their shopping carts. Now we just established in the paragraph above that user spend more time browsing online. This seems like a good time to reconnect with them and remind them that they were interested in you.
Ideally you would combine some interesting incentive with that reconnection so that you don’t just come off as desperate but like you have something to offer. Free shipping or special discounts could be some examples of such incentives.
When thinking about retargeting however do make sure that your campaign doesn’t lead to be perceived as too ‘stalky’ as this might lead to less customer trust once again. So be aware of how long you want to ‘follow’ your potential customer and don’t be creepy!
Personalization
We talked about the important of personal content before and I remain of the opinion that we stated back then still holds true:
There are lots of 2020 predictions out there right now and we here at KITE obviously also shared our opinions (Social Media Trends 2020 | SEO Trends 2020) but nobody really talks about one of the most important factors that relates to Social Media, SEO, SEM, CRO, CX, and you name it: Personalization. We all know what that means, yet it’s not really being taken too serious or talked about. Maybe because it doesn’t have a cool acronym? How about we introduce PXO (Personal X Optimization – Personal eXperience Optimization)?
I know what you’re thinking. Now those guys at KITE even make up their own acronyms. And that’s right If we think about it, it makes sense though. Providing the best customer experience possible is more crucial than ever as the choices out there are bigger than ever and most of the competition is improving their experiences constantly – as one should.
Hence it becomes a must-do to start with PXO – optimize the personal experiences for your customers. No matter if you’re a small business or a huge player, we all compete with Amazon, Lazada, Netflix, et al when it comes to online experiences.
It is, obviously, hard to always stay ahead of the game and predict upcoming trends to be ready for what customers want to see and to personalize their experiences – but you can certainly take steps to be prepared for whatever disruptive development might come your way.
Now with users spending more time at home and online, and hence seeing more content than before, it becomes even more important to be personal and to stand out. By being personal and delivering unique content to each user the likelihood of you standing out and connecting to the users increases. This is what sets you apart from those other generic Facebook campaigns that everybody just ignores and I am sure this ignorance of social media advertising will reach new heights due to us spending so much time online and becoming numb to it.
We already have the term ‘banner blindness’ and I am sure after Covid-19 is over, we can add the term ‘social media advertising blindness’ to our digital marketing dictionary as well. What to do to avoid being ignored? You know it! Create personalized content!
Those are some thoughts on what to do with digital marketing during Covid-19. Most importantly however of course: Stay home and stay safe!
Thank you for another perspective for business . as everyone known most of new or small business was affected and had to reduce all cost that occurs ,owners need to cope the problem and adapt their marketing to new lifestyle of customers that come with this situation and strongly agree with remarketing idea that you wrote for some business that didn’t focused on digital marketing in the past.
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