Digital marketing in the time of coronavirus
Coronavirus is clearly foremost in everyone’s minds right now; indeed, it often feels as though there’s little time to think about anything else. Most importantly, we do hope that you and those closest to you are staying safe and well.
No one is enjoying the current situation, and nobody wants it to go on for any longer than necessary. But we’re now all having to adapt to a new way of living and working. Digital marketing is no exception.
Indeed, with no events allowed, and people seeing offline adverts such as billboards less often, it could be argued that digital marketing is more important than ever as shoppers increasingly turn to phones and laptops, and consume online channels ever more voraciously.
While some markets are doing well, including exercise, crafting and office supplies equipment for use at home, other sectors, like hospitality and travel, are clearly struggling.
With online shopping actively encouraged, indeed it’s the only way of buying non-essential goods, think about how you can reward web-based customers, for example by doubling rewards points on digital orders.
Here are some other points to bear in mind:
- Make sure your website and delivery systems can cope with a potential upsurge in online orders.
- Revisit product photos and descriptions and make sure they’re clear, accurate and compelling.
- Communicate with customers about the virus, if you haven’t done so already, outlining how you are doing things differently as a result. Be upfront and transparent about any delays, product shortages or other problems. At a time where people are experiencing digital overload, make every message count.
- Have you optimised for voice search?
- Will those at home who are browsing (and possibly bored with more limited attention spans) be able to find your business easily and quickly via the major search engines?
- Make sure your blogs and any video updates answer the questions that your customers are most likely to have.
- Is your locally targeted marketing driving searches online rather than to physical places?
- Check photos for groups of people or people touching (even shaking hands) which may not be appropriate.
- Do you want to shift budgets to promote goods or services that would currently be more relevant?
- How could you bring offline consumers online? Which messages are engaging most customers just now?
Analyse, analyse, analyse
New search trends and patterns are emerging all the time (virtually every day) as the pandemic continues.
More than ever, it’s vital that you understand the pages your customers are clicking on and the searches they’re making. Your marketing messages need to be spot-on, and content must be relevant.
Use the power of the information you find to target campaigns based on real-time data.
PPC and Covid-19
You can expect quite a lot of volatility just now when it comes to costs per click in the PPC arena.
Check all information is relevant for the current circumstances, changing pick-up information, opening times and delivery drivers’ arrangements if they’re doing anything differently.
Look at your keywords to be sure they’re still relevant and think about platforms such as YouTube, which are likely to be especially brisk for traffic right now.
Full compliance
Finally, as momentum shifts, it’s a good time to be sure you’re fully compliant with things like GDPR and similar data privacy regulations.
Equally, you may want to use some of the ‘down’ time to plan for how you will work things once we emerge from the crisis, so you’re ready to hit the ground running as soon as that happens.
Here to help
Coronavirus remains a time of worry and uncertainty for us all. And you’ll need strong reserves of creativity and agility to survive and thrive. At Front Page, we’re working to help our clients with their digital marketing throughout the crisis.
Give us a call if we can be of any assistance with your current SEO and PPC campaigns, and, above all, stay safe and well.