Impact of Covid-19 on businesses : How digital marketing can help your business during coronavirus pandemic

Entering into the second week of the world’s largest coronavirus lockdown, India so far has 6,000+ confirmed coronavirus positive cases and 200+ deaths.
The new virus continues to spread day by day throughout the world with the latest update on the number of coronavirus cases globally being approximately 1,617,530.
Human lives, of course, are majorly hit by this deadly virus. Businesses globally also are impacted by its spread.

As the virus continues to spread rapidly, the government has forced complete lockdown protocols for the safety of its people. And with most of the businesses temporarily shut, the impact of coronavirus is clearly visible.

According to a study, The global economy could shrink by up to 1 per cent in 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic.The most impacted business is the travel industry with airlines cutting flights and tourists cancelling business trips and holidays. Along with the tourism sector that includes hotels, resorts, BnBs, flights, travel agencies, other industries like Food and beverages, real estates have taken a huge hit!

So as a business entity, how can you maintain and can still grow your business.
While the customers are at home,staying indoors, the chances of them being presumably online are high. To save you from this storm of economy drop, digital marketing may well be your best defence against coronavirus.

With a solid digital marketing strategy, you’re in a better position to minimize your business losses, find new ways to capitalize on opportunities & still grow your business during the COVID-19 Crisis.

With social distancing being the preventative measure to avoid the spread,
Let us see how digital marketing can help your business during coronavirus pandemic.

Your audience being at home seeks out content that entertains, inspires,and informs them.
Digital marketing tactics such as email, social media, SEO, and paid distribution can become an effective way for your business to connect with your customers during the coronavirus pandemic and engage them for future prospects.

  1. Enhance your business’s online presence
    Now is the right situation to serve and promote your product and services to your customers online. If you have been doubting about getting a website for your business all this while, the time has come to shift your focus online.Having a mobile responsive business website can help you target the audience as most of them use smartphones. With a responsive website, a business can showcase its products irrespective of the device screen it’s being viewed on.Considering a website redesign or thinking about enhancing your website with new functionality can be a good idea if you have a website but it does not adapt to various device screens.Adding functionalities like integrating chat bot, whatsapp and social media integration can improve the digital presence of your website.Many of your potential customers are online, so it’s the right opportunity for you as a business to enhance your digital presence and provide your customers with a better user experience with a full featured responsive website for better engagement with your brand
  2. Google search ranking and marketing
    Once you have a website that can attract and engage your audience, it’s time to market it and reach your target audience.There are many ways to do it. The major channel being search engines like Google. SEO or Search engine optimisation is an organic way to reach out to your potential audience on the web and pull in buyers searching for your services. Using the right and relevant keyword that users are searching on Google gives your business a chance to stand in front of them and promote products & services. Optimise and restructure your business website according to Google SEO guidelines and rank high on Google search engine to get more traffic and potential leads. Search engine marketing is also another profitable way to reach out to the target audience at home. By adjusting your ad budgets and smart bidding strategy, make your brand capture top Google ad placements and drive more traffic to your website instantly when people at their home are searching for the products and services that you provide. If you belong to the e-commerce sector, then it’s a good strategy to keep advertising as people would prefer buying online then moving out of their houses. Also promoting your relevant content through Ads is a good idea. This will get more traffic on your website and boost your online ranking on SERPs. Hotel industries can focus more on future bookings with Paid ads like Google Ads or Facebook / Instagram Ads that promote packages or discounts after the lockdown period.
  3. Enhance social media presence
    Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, is where your existing customers are available 24×7. Keeping your social media active at this time helps your business to stay connected and engage with your audience instantly. By posting content that includes information about your company with high end visuals attracts your followers and encourages conversations. This leads to a strong b2c relationship which will also promote your brand to a sector of the audience which you might have missed. Also creating cause based campaigns can help our brand connect with your audience by informing them about the steps you are taking for the benefit of people during this difficult phase. Finally, social media is a great tool to get in front of a new audience. Creating an effective plan to reach out to the customers across the social media funnel is what digital marketing can do. Hiring a digital marketing agency at this time can be a quick alternative to keep your social media channels active and efficient. As this will help you to continue to research your niche market and dedicate yourself more to work on your business.
  4. Email Marketing
    A digital marketing company knows the importance of what email marketing can do in maintaining a strong brand image during tough times. Depending on the type of business, an online marketing agency will strategize on some offers and giveaways to your customers to retain them. Sending an email to the customers showing your concern on the recent pandemic situation can instil a factor of trust and faith in your brand that you care for your clients.

Digital marketing your business at this time of crisis can be a bit tough as you need to have the right expertise to connect and engage with the audience. Burdening your staff with something new like digital marketing can be time consuming and affect your brand’s online presence. Instead choose a digital marketing agency as your partner that can efficiently promote your business at this time. Taking this decision can be both cost-effective and promote right growth for your business.
Crisis takes a toll on every business and things can go out of control, but by hiring a professional digital marketing agency can help you explore new opportunities by trying effective & efficient approaches while you continue to focus on other aspects of your business operations and keeping customer happy

If you are seeking ways for your business to thrive during the coronavirus pandemic and also in future, we would be happy to discuss opportunities to lower costs and improve your marketing efficiency. Contact us today for a consultation.