It’s been roughly two months now since the deadly Coronavirus started to flip our lives upside down. The outbreak of COVID-19, caused by the novel coronavirus, is having a tremendous impact on countries, communities, and businesses worldwide. During this time, it’s pertinent to stay calm, safe, and explore smart digital marketing strategies to keep your business going during COVID-19.

Or would you like to allow your business to die with the Coronavirus? Probably NO.

In this article, we’re going to discuss the different digital marketing strategies and opportunities that you can leverage on during this COVID-19 outbreak and increase your digital marketing ROI.

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Best Digital Marketing Strategies for Businesses During Coronavirus

Without a doubt, these are perilous times; the world is anxious, but the worst thing you can do is allow panic to take over everything, including your digital marketing strategy. Maintaining your business visibility can help you continue creating revenue, which is especially important during potential economic downtimes. 

Here are some digital marketing strategies to help your business during this lockdown:

1. Connect With Your Customers on Social Media During a Critical Moment

Unarguably, we’re all dealing with the significant impact the COVID-19 outbreak has unleashed on our lives whether you’ve tested positive or not. We’re lockdown in our homes and our kids aren’t in school anymore. We’re all taking precautionary measures. We can’t visit our friends and loved ones. We can’t even eat at our favorite restaurants or go out to see movies or watch sports.

Certainly, all minor conveniences but jarring nonetheless. This is the time to show empathy to others and help out where you can. Also, this is a time we all need to be sensitive — and not too pushy — but it’s a great opportunity for your brand to stand out tall during a difficult time. More people than ever before are on social media now while stuck at home, browsing their feed for updates and trying to stay connected in a suddenly isolated nation.

You can also, use your business to give back to the community in any way you can. And promote your good deeds with social media marketing to help build your brand.

2. Make Sure Your Business Can Be Found Online

Did you know that more people are online right now than in their cars or walking the sidewalks? Search traffic has increased significantly over the past week and will continue to climb as we hunker down. We’re all glued to our devices looking for real-time updates within our community. We’re also constantly looking for entertainment and ways to pass the time. Perhaps, for many, that includes indulging in online shopping.

Anything online right now will be consumed 50 times more it used to be. Hence, this is not the time to be hidden online. You should be using search engine optimization (SEO) strategies to accelerate to the top of Google’s search engine results pages (SERPs) so your business can be easily found. This should never be a time for a business to go into a shell and poke out your head every few days to see if the sun has risen on the other side.

3. Focus on Customer Service and Reputation Management

Brands like Facebook, Google, Coca-Cola, KFC are creating content hubs to keep customers informed during this pandemic.

Are you going to sorrow all day?

What then can you do?

Small to medium businesses can utilize blogs to create engaging content that is relevant to their industry or even as a means to update their customers as to the measures being taken at their business.

You can start NOW. Now is the time to create and provide your customers with informative content. Reassure customers and let them know what you’re doing to help them throughout this precarious time

4. Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Advertising is a Smart Marketing Approach Now

With more people at home in front of their computer and phone, it’s a great opportunity for businesses to utilize PPC marketing to connect and engage with their customers and gain a competitive advantage. Oh, and it’s a great chance to save some dollars within your digital marketing budget. On average, cost-per-clicks have decreased by over 6 percent across all verticals since last week.

And it will interest you to know that CPC is likely to continue to decrease in the coming week, reducing the amount of money an advertiser pays a publisher for every ad click. That is an offer for your business to use this opportunity to scoop up that lost market share from others pulling back during this time.

5. Stay Ahead or Jump In Front of Your Competition

As may have known, SEO helps your business increase organic traffic to your website and skyrocket you past your competition. Who doesn’t want o be on the front page of Google SERPs and at the top of the list?

Your business must be there so that when your customers search for certain keywords you’re the company they end up calling. However, to climb to the top of the SERPs takes time and strategic optimization strategies. If you fail to continue to optimize your website and content daily, you stand a chance to lose valuable ground in the search results and your freefall could cost your business thousands of dollars in lost revenue.

What you don’t want to do at this time is halt an SEO campaign. That can be a huge mistake for your business. And you will pay with your leads and revenue- as they will suffer. But if others choose to retreat on SEO, it’s also a perfect time for your business to push even harder to outsmart your competitors.

Importantly, prepare your business for the bounce back rush. As we have seen, the coronavirus outbreak should fade (just as it has in China) after a few months. That’s when the status quo returns and consumers’ spending habits stabilize. You have to realize that SEO is more of a long-term digital marketing strategy.

What you do today for your SEO campaign will impact your organic search traffic significantly two months from now. Discontinuing your SEO campaign now could have a detrimental impact on your revenue potential two months from now when the coronavirus fades into history.

6. Provide Special Offer To Your Customers

During this critical time, you have the opportunity to show support for your customer base by offering special discounts that will keep your revenue coming. Identify and analyze your product-market fit and create a special offer for it.

Many people are at home surfing the internet, looking for discounts to save money during a time of unrest. It’s a great way to connect and engage with your customers and keep a steady stream of revenue that will keep your doors open.

You can launch out your special offers through pay-per-click (PPC) advertising and social media advertising. 

7. Local SEO is now More Relevant; So Are Your Online Reviews

We’ve all cut down our travel and are staying close to home. In the odd times when we do leave our house, we’re looking for nearby destinations for services and supplies. So you want to ensure that your business is deploying local SEO strategies to optimize your website for “near me” or “nearby” searches.

You want customers in your locality to be able to easily find you online so they turn to you first for their needs. At a time when we’re all looking for more convenience, this allows your business to provide support during a rare time for families.

Also, another way to improve your local SEO during this time is to not forget about the importance of adding positive reviews. During the coronavirus, online reputation management is as important as ever before because this is a great time to connect with your target audience and show empathy during a chaotic time.

To provide the right service or product for people during this unsolicited time — when they need it most during this COVID-19 pandemic — is likely to be rewarded with a glowing review.

8. Be Ready to Pivot as a Business and Inform Your Customers

In a dynamic situation, your business should also be dynamic. This is a time that you should find new ways to connect with your customers like never before. It shows empathy and keeps your business relevant at a time when it may have been affected by people staying at home. For instance, restaurants are knocked off right now because customers aren’t dining in.

You should make sure you’re offering free delivery services. Just the other day, a local restaurant emailed offering three ways to get their food into their customers’ hands: delivery, curbside ordering, and parking lot pickup.

Also, let your customers know through all of your online platforms that you’ve increased your sanitary practices and how you’re doing that specifically.

But other businesses should pivot right now, too, as we stay in. Gyms and fitness hub have closed their doors to curb the spread of the coronavirus, but why not offer online workout classes right now? The dentist could offer online consultations. Grocery stores should offer free curbside pickup. And all of these opportunities presented can be boosted with strategic social media campaigns.

9. Focus on Your Strategy Don’t Fall Victim to the Panic Move

How many toiletries do you have at your house right now? If your answer to this is a closet full, you’re likely one of the people who flocked to the store when the coronavirus hysteria started to gain grounds. However, that’s not how you want to react if you want to implement a smart digital marketing strategy. You never want to make a panic move. You always want to use metrics and analyze all of the data you have available before making a decision.

Knee-jerk reactions usually don’t end well in digital marketing. Take caution when quickly reacting to a sudden shift in the economy or market.

10. Use this Luxury of Time to Finish Your Digital To-Do Lists

Now that you’re not commuting to the office or taking in-person meetings, your schedule has likely freed up some time for you. Those marketing items that may have fallen through the cracks and been overlooked can now be addressed.

Perhaps your business website demands a redesign. Primegate Digital’s website design professionals can overhaul your website in less than two months all while working remotely. This is also a great time to have a conversion rate optimization specialist perform a CRO audit of your website to ensure your call-to-actions (CTAs) are turning leads into customers. SEO cannot be left out. It’s an ideal time to do an SEO audit of your website to ensure that your optimization strategies are delivered at its best.

How Major Brands and Business Are Marketing During the Coronavirus

It will shock you to know that not just small businesses have suffered during COVID-19. Major brands and large companies have also taken major blows to their revenue streams and certainly won’t be hitting their financial goals by the end of 2020.

But they, too, are adjusting on the tides. Most big brands are using a smart marketing approach and advertising campaigns right now to promote positivity and relay important messages. Let’s review five businesses that are getting it right at a time like this:

KFC

They recently took to Instagram to share a smart social distancing video campaign while promoting their chicken. The Instagram post read: “We’re committed to providing easy and safer access to all your Kentucky Fried favorites, which is why we’re ensuring that once the chicken leaves our fryer, the only hands to touch it are yours. Come by our drive-thrus, order ahead or get free, contactless delivery” 

 

Google

The world’s largest search engine has taken responsibility as well. Google has also used a smart, timely marketing approach during the coronavirus.

Google’s marketing idea during COVID-19 was to spread knowledge about how to stop the spread of the coronavirus. Google took to Instagram to promote the DO THE FIVE campaign by the World Health Organization. The Instagram post reads: “Do these five simple things to help stop coronavirus (COVID-19). DO THE FIVE and share this to get the word out”.

 

Coca-Cola

They used compassion and empathy as part of a smart marketing strategy during the coronavirus. Coca-Cola posted on its Instagram account recently a “together we can” message to everyone and the caption reads “Together we can do more than anyone of us alone. ❤️”

 

Apple

As part of its COVID-19 marketing campaign, Apple took to Instagram to with “we’re staying home to stay safe” video post that portrays empathy, care, and togetherness. The post reads “Community Brief 29: at Home
We might be at home, but we can still come together.”

 

Toyota

Here’s another big brand, also showed empathy and smart marketing during the coronavirus. Toyota took to Instagram recently with their “Stay Home, Stay Safe” campaign to enlighten the public on the importance of staying home. The caption reads “Stay home for those who cannot”

These examples have shown us businesses that refuse to bury their heads despite the pandemic. Hopefully you, too, can grab some insights from these smart marketing approaches during the coronavirus and apply the same to your business.

Importantly, be sure to adjust your strategies and marketing to adapt to the times. Meet your customers where they are right now (and that’s mostly at home and online). Find a way to push and give your business the best chance to stay relevant by making your business website easily found online through a strategic SEO strategy.

No doubt, these are challenging times for everyone. But your business can still flourish if you’re willing to try a new approach and not pull back on your marketing during a critical time for your company to show compassion and empathy. Now is the time to connect with your customers like never before and not separate from them.

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If you have any questions about how Primegate Digital’s full-service digital marketing agency can help your business grow, please contact us online or Call/WhatsApp +2347039686407

Conclusion

This is a frightening time, but you need to think about the long term effects that this could have on your business if you put a stop to all of your marketing efforts.

We encourage you at this time to stay active online, answer your customer’s queries, and let them know that you’re still there — that this is temporary.

We will get through this together. Stay safe.