COVID-19 Outbreak and the Changing World
COVID-19 has changed how things worked. The year 2020 was spent figuring out how to adjust to the pandemic impacts on businesses and the global economy. And unfortunately, we entered the year 2021 with COVID-19 still intact. However, one benefit of it is now we know how to work around the covid-19 to the best of our capabilities.
A lot of businesses suffered from the impact of covid. Few were shut down, few went into bankruptcy, while others are still recovering from its damages. On the other hand, there were a few businesses that flourished and adjust well to the pandemic. Those were the ones who survived.
While many businesses went from rags to riches, the others went from riches to rags. There is no a perfect formula to deal with the changes. The same goes for the marketing industry, brands had to change how to market their products, advertise them, deal with customers, etc.
In this article, we have outlined a few major changes that occurred in online marketing during covid-19.
Major Changes in Online Marketing During COVID-19
- Building strong Customer Relations based on Empathy
- A lot of businesses went through a troublesome times during the covid. Some recovered and some didn’t. And it was not just the business that was impacted, but families, individuals, and families.
- The whole world went into isolation together, with uncertainty of what might happen hanging over their heads. Therefore a lot of businesses took an empathetic approach and connected with customers to show compassion and understanding. This was done by offering free masks and sanitizers.
- A Lot of clothing stores made the mask for their most loyal customers while others asked their influencers to entertain their customers over social media platforms. We saw a lot of brands came up with unique and cute ideas to connect with customers during the covid to show that ‘we all are in it together’.
- While other businesses like, brick and mortar translation offices in Dubai went online to offer their services.
- Businesses went out of their way to spread the positive vibes and tried to enforce wearing masks and socially distance by practicing it themselves, featuring it on their social media platforms, and trying their best to make it a new norm.
- COVID-19 Content Update
- With the covid outbreak, every company had to update its content strategy according to the covid-19 standards. That means updating advertising campaigns, marketing campaigns, photo content, and all the other future marketing strategies the business had planned.
- A lot of work had to be put on hold and re-strategized given the circumstances. We saw all the big and small companies addressing the covid-19 update in their marketing campaigns. We saw a lot of advertisements been taken down and updated with the covid content.
- A lot of restaurants, instead of advertising they are dine-in facilities focused on now advertising take-outs and delivery services.
- Experiential Marketing
- Experiential marketing saw a rise in the pandemic, as this was the only way that came close to giving customers somewhat of a realistic shopping experience. Keep in mind that people have been living in isolation and craved human interaction and therefore brands who adopted experiential marketing campaigns were able to give their audience an appeal.
- This kind of marketing can be done through websites, webinars, or social media pages. The following are a few examples of experiential marketing that were used by companies and were successful in covid times.
Virtual and Augment reality is compatible with apple and android devices. A lot of companies used this technique to give customers a virtual experience to browse through your store and surf through your products and services.
- Gamification is another interactive way customers can interact with your products.
- Many other tools are used by companies to give customers a complete virtual experience to benefit them in the best possible way in the given circumstances.
- Paid Advertising:
- Given that everything was shut down during the pandemic and everyone was stuck at home isolated, a lot of us spent our time surfing endlessly through our phones. Because let us are real, our phones and tablets were the only things that gave us exposure to the outside world while staying in our comfort zone.
- Due to the rise of the use Of phones and internet surfing, businesses had the opportunity to attract a lot of customers through paid advertising. Due to covid a lot of social media sites had lowered their advertising rates, which is why everything worked in favor of businesses to invest in paid advertising.
- Be it Facebook, google, youtube, or Instagram; all the social media sites offer paid to advertise. For those of you who do no know what paid advertising is? Let us answer that for you.
- Let us say, you have a translation office in Dubai and you are now offering your services online. You can advertise this through photo and video content on Facebook and google. You will have to pay them according to their packages which usually states how many days will the ad run and how much will you pay for it.
- There is a marketing technique called PPC, which means pay per click. This means as a business owner you will only have to pay for the advertisement company when someone clicks on the ad. There was a huge rise in a Paid advertisement during covid.
- Conclusion
- COVID-19 brought a lot of uncertainty and fear in our lives, means in our business lives and our personal lives. A lot of things got impacted due to this virus, however, being resilient humans, we took our time but eventually figured out a way to live around it and still progress in the world.
- While a lot of us faced unimaginable losses in our businesses but the key here is to keep fighting and adapt to the changes for the best till we get free from this virus.
