As the world is passing a critical moment right now due to the outburst of the deadly COVID-19, the current business landscape is going through some drastic transformations. Digital marketers and advisers are still trying to increase their website traffic to get more sales but every function of a business is experiencing a paradigm shift.
We still do not know how long the pandemic situation will stay, how we can survive hereafter the end of COVID-19, and how we can apply a new marketing strategy to salvage the business position. People are writing essay papers, doing research, and trying to find a path to overcome the current situation. Based on all research and personal experience, let’s see how COVID-19 affected marketing.
#1 Changing Consumer Behavior – Therefore Marketing and Advertising
In most countries, people cannot go outside whenever they want, all activities including all business operations have gone online. People who loved to do shopping at the shopping mall are shifting to online purchases. That’s how consumer behavior is changing. Thus increases the value of online advertising and digital marketing.
But, some industries are getting flooded with orders such as household goods, groceries, pet supplies, general merchandise, and pharmacy. Some others are lacking orders and interactions such as travel companies, furniture, brick industry, transportation, and hospitality. As people are purchasing online, marketers and advertisers should give the highest priority to digital marketing. After all, they should be adapted to consumer behavior to increase their sales.
#2 Direct Effect on Small Business
The rapid spread of COVID-19 directly affects small businesses. As we know, most of the small businesses have lower budgets, they are literally struggling in the current epidemic situation. In fact, most of the countries even impose taxes on digital marketing tools and advertising fees. It’s like to pour water on a drowned mouse.
Therefore, the usage of marketing and advertising tools is decreasing in most of the small businesses. Besides this, COVID-19 also affected small business that needs people to go outside such as tours and travel companies. If you own a business and want to run it effectively, you should spend hours to find the most effective marketing solution that is cheap.
#3 Conversion Rate Is Getting Down
As organic traffic is down in most industries, the conversion rate is also decreasing in some industries. In fact, most of the industries now deeply rely on paid advertising instead of seeking for organic traffic. If you are in the travel, transportation, or construction industry, you are likely to lose organic traffic thus decrease the conversion rate.
However, some industries get organic traffics and maintain a great conversion rate due to their types of businesses such as the news and media industry. So, if you want to increase your conversion rate, you can do paid advertising and provide discounts and coupons.
#4 Reduction in Marketing Expenses
Based on the type of business, the average ad spends are getting down 9% in Europe while the year-on-year revenue in China was down 15%. Germany and France also reduce their ad expenses by 7% and 12% respectively. Big companies also reduce their analog marketing expenses (TV ad, radio ad, newspaper, and the magazine ad).
According to the Interactive Advertising Bureau, around 70% of business owners already stopped spending on marketing while 16% are still spending on different ads. Every business needs to make real-time decisions to minimize the negative impact of COVID-19 on their sales.
#5 Implementation of New Marketing Strategies
With the spread of COVID-19 whole over the world, every business starts thinking differently to increase its revenue. Most of the industries are implementing new marketing strategies. Instead of paying for the TV ad, billboard, magazines, and newspapers, industries are using different digital marketing strategies.
Among all the types of digital marketing, social media marketing is the best for both small and large businesses. Popular social media such as Facebook, Instagram, Youtube are the best platform to promote the products online. Due to the epidemic, most offline businesses also turn online. So, the acceptance and strategies of digital marketing can boost their business and popularity.