“Life is not about waiting for the storm to pass. It’s about learning how to dance in the rain.”
History tells us that black swan events like the COVID-19 pandemic have given birth to the emergence of new products, landmark inventions, and innovative companies.
Apple and xxx are the products of such events. On the other hand, are companies that lie low and wait it out. Which one do you wanna be?
The most common reaction triggered by an economic crunch in such happenings is the cutting down on expenditure.
The primary practices are laying off workers and reducing marketing costs. However, this is exactly where you can go wrong & lower your chances of a bounce back.
What is striking about the Corona pandemic is the fact that people are generally staying at home. No wonder this period has seen a substantial increase in the time that people spent online, especially on social media.
So why not strike when the metal is hot! Digital marketing provides many low-cost ways of promoting your business. Particularly when the more expensive option of advertising is out of reach, digital is the way to go.
Social media marketing, search, and content optimization are the best ways to keep in touch with your existing customers and target new ones.
Secondly, you get a breather to vamp up your SEO and emerge on top while the rabbits are sleeping!
Studies from previous recessions have clearly shown that companies who did not cut their marketing expenditure, bounced back stronger. In fact, they pumped more money into it.
However, they did shift their spending to alternative ways, specifically digital marketing. They do not view it as an expense but as an investment. How are you going to take the benefit of it?
Let’s dive in.
Interaction on Social Media- No Distancing Required
In COVID-19 times, the internet is the only place that is not quarantined. Communicate with users in a way that reflects the challenges they are encountering.
Work from home, team management, employees’ health, maintaining social distance at workplaces, the challenges of frontline workers, etc. are the topics that are engaging the audience.
Maneuvering your digital campaign on this is bringing in users and customers in big numbers. Companies have revolved their content on software tools that make WFH productive and have gotten good leads and engagements.
During such recessional situations, marketers take advantage of the 3 important factors- emotion, trust in the brand, and value.
When you present your company as a pillar standing strong in an economic crisis, it increases the brand value manifold and builds trust in consumers’ minds about your credibility and solidarity.
Good for: Increasing brand value, engagement, awareness, and building a relationship of trust with consumers and prospective customers.
Email Marketing
As we all know, a very targeted way of personal interaction surpassing all other ways of digital communication is email Marketing.
But in the COVID-19 times, email marketing makes a lot of sense because first, it is very cost-effective, and second, you now have time on your side-both yours and your customers. the benefits are phenomenal.
You require an email list and start working on it right away.
Social Media Freaks provide email-marketing services that suit your budget, and have high-quality engaging content along with a database of people you want to target.
Professional agencies make sure that the emails do not go into the spam folders and also the receivers don’t mark them as spam.
Good for: getting new customers on board, cross-selling, keeping in touch
Change in Consumer Behavior- Digital Transformation
The positive side of COVID-19 is the real influence on digital behavior change. Digital Transformation is the buzzword not only for enterprises but also for consumers.
Middle to the high-ranking management of most organizations, including people from the 35 to 44 age bracket increased their internet usage by 11% while the younger lot showed an average rise of 5-7%.
Similarly, major platforms like Facebook (+18%), Instagram (+20%), and WhatsApp (+17%) have all observed rises in the number of sessions per week per user as per the Nielsen Report on COVID-19’s impact on the changing landscape in media.
Add this to higher smart TV & national OOT platforms usage stretching to record heights. During the tough Corona times, people have made palpable changes in their lifestyle in these tough times and concentrated on good light content.
Taking leverage from this unprecedented digital transformation is the smart manager with a futuristic view who decides to remain active digitally, because, as they say, out of sight, out of mind! With its basic investment, Social Media Freaks can devise an average digital marketing budget for your online marketing options.
Conclusion
While most companies would reduce expenditure in recessions, the companies who would bounce back harder are the ones who would not put cuts from where revenue pours in.
So, if you’re looking for smart ways to get your brand out there even in tough times and increase your sales, think no further! Adopt digital marketing like never before and Social Media Freaks would be happy to get you up and running.
