These are uncertain times we are living in, many parts of the world are under lockdown and no one can know certainly when things will go back to normal. A portion of the working population are holding meetings online and others are stuck at home not able to carry out their work related responsibilities. A huge number of students are attending classes online on video calling platforms such as Zoom, Skype, etc. This means the amount of activity online will almost definitely increase. In fact, in Italy, in the period of March much of the country was in lockdown owing to the spike in internet activity by approximately 30%.

During Quarantine , people are hesitant even to leave their house to get essential groceries. In this situation, they will turn to Digital Marketing in Covid19 for almost everything they have a need for. Hence, since many businesses are being run from home as well, one could take this opportunity to help the general public find what they need easily and letting them know that you are available to provide your services. This should be done while ensuring that you respect their privacy and security. One should also remain sensitive to the situation. So. let us see what we should be doing to make the most out of this situation:

1. Time to Make some Changes

A business must be following a particular set of objectives that it may have been working towards to bring in maximum revenue. But, due to a pandemic, many of these objectives may change. It is time to sit down and entirely reassess your priorities in terms of what your business can offer in these times of gloom. Instead of taking advantage of the increase in screen time by spamming digital marketing platforms with advertisements of your product/service, revise the products that you have in your inventory and carefully choose your target audience.

2. Keeping Track of Everything

Data collecting and reporting is going to benefit you immensely. As with the changes in time, the search trends will also change. For example, if you are a supplier of gym equipment, people may be looking for workouts that are friendly to do at home. So you can push products such as kettle-bells and resistance bands that are more likely to be used in households so that they are aware of such an option. Similarly, learning about what pages consumers visit and what products they search for will give us the chance to tweak our advertising messages to make a greater impact by promoting relevant content.
Your data reports can also help you identify offline customers that may not be aware of the availability of your product. Hence, you can prod them into looking at your service by identifying the right platform to advertise them to based on how much time they spend on the internet. Use data on demographic to streamline your focus and resources. Always stay current with the trends and change your marketing tactics appropriately. We have plenty of tools such as Google AdWords, Formisimo, MixPanel,etc that being us real-time data. Making smart decisions based on this data will bring consumers digitally closer.

3. Communicate with your Clients

Many businesses would be aware of the surge in digital activity and it would be a period of ‘over-messaging’ for consumers. Hence, when you decide to send out a message related to the pandemic or just a general advert on your product, ensure it is absolutely necessary as it may invoke negative feelings towards your brand if they end up considering it as spam.

Ensure the message comes across friendly and takes into account the whole lockdown situation that your consumers are in. Try to make your message showcase your empathy or you could try to make light of the situation to gather some brownie points. For example, this advertisement that Coca Cola put up on Twitter got many people retweeting it, making it seen by the public.

You have to communicate your brand in a way that it does not seem imposed, otherwise not sending any messages would do you equally good. Segment your audience and send pertinent messages related to pertinent issues such as the cancellation of an event or an order, information on updated inventory or change in delivery timings and so on.

And when you are crafting the messages to respond to your consumers respond in a personalized manner in a way that it shows you respect their circumstances and restrictions and also ensuring them that you are doing the most to help them out. This can be carried out hand in hand with strategy number 2.

4. Inbound Marketing

Before you go about digital marketing in covid-19 your website to a whole bunch of bored consumers on quarantine, you should ensure your website can handle such traffic. There is no point in your digital marketing ventures if many consumers are directed to your page at the same time and your host can’t handle the influx in traffic causing a whole lot of problems with your website. Your website could take a considerably longer time to load, extra unnecessary files could be slowing down the process further. Ensure you have a quality host in place or upgrade.

Also, you have to ensure that when your link is provided in digital advertisements, it is absolutely successful in leading the patrons to your site. You can do this by test driving your inbound marketing strategies and see if they are up to the mark. Here are a few methods of Inbound testing that you can look up on:
• A/B Testing
• Content Testing
• Multivariate Testing
• Geo Target Testing
• Eye-Track Testing
• Usability Testing

Ensure people can easily be directed to your website through Google searches and even voice recognition. Include information on how you are tackling Covid 19 to remain current. Use the data you collect to help you optimize your inbound marketing strategies.

5. Liaison with Strong Affiliates

If your brand has a positive online reputation, chances are that your brand is recognized by many. But, if you can’t provide them with the necessities that they are going after during the present situation, use your brand’s voice to market another brand that is able to do so. You will be generating leads and also helping people by being the middleman between the products that are sought after and the consumers.

Read Also: 7 Affiliate Marketing Tips to Follow in 2020