The business world is becoming increasingly brutal and competitive with each passing day. Brands and businesses without a digital marketing strategy are bound to struggle indefinitely or fail.
This is true particularly during the current coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic that has sent shock waves around the globe.
The rapid spread of the disease has led to the closure of public spaces, schools, businesses, and borders. These containment measures meant to disrupt the viral spread have also hindered the free flow of people, goods, and services. And in turn, fuelling a financial crisis.
No doubt, the economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic is being felt by different businesses.
For your business to survive this period of uncertainty and economic crisis, you need to double, or even triple your investment in digital marketing.
This begs the question, why do you need to focus more on digital marketing?
In today’s modern landscape, the internet today is rapidly changing every facet of our lives including the world of business.
With multitudes of individuals constantly surfing the net looking for a variety of products and services, the web provides a vast market place you could tap into.
While traditional marketing media such as billboards and newspapers are still in existence, their use is not as effective.
This is as a result of the introduction of various digital and interactive marketing channels that have proven effective in reaching a broader audience and resulting in more exposure.
Digital marketing serves as a convenient, cost-effective, and flexible medium to reach consumers and promote sales. However, to be successful with your digital marketing efforts, you need to develop an effective and all-encompassing strategy that suits your brand needs best.
If you’re unsure about what digital marketing is, we recommend reading DigitalMarketingExtreme’s source on all things related to digital marketing and what it can do for your business.
Let’s go through the ten (10) reasons why you need to double down on your digital marketing strategy, particularly during this coronavirus pandemic.
Contents
1. Generate New Leads
Measures against the spread of the coronavirus have resulted in the closure of commercial centres, schools, offices, and businesses.
With millions of people encouraged to stay at home, they have turned to the internet for their entertainment, shopping, and so on.
This means there is going to be a surge in digital and online media consumption, which you need leverage to take advantage of with online marketing.
Generating an effective campaign designed to grab qualified leads isn’t the easiest process, but it’s made all that much simpler through the use of marketing automation tools.
By implementing an effective digital marketing strategy, you can generate more leads for your business. More leads mean more revenue and an increase in revenue equals profit- a win-win situation for you.
2. Reach a Global Audience
If you plan on taking your brand to the next level, then you need to expand your operations on a broader scale.
Digital marketing is a medium that can help you to achieve this business objective because it gives your brand the exposure it needs for long term growth.
The different forms of digital marketing, allows you to target prospects overseas and draw in sales from across the globe.
When you can broaden your operations by reaching potential customers outside your town, city, or service area then you can compete on an international scale.
3. Stress-free Updates
The different forms of digital marketing channels allow you to easily make quick changes or adjustments whenever you want to.
You can easily update blog posts, correct articles, or edit existing videos to match the ever-changing needs and demands of your target audience. This feature is particularly useful during this COVID-19 pandemic where consumer behaviour and interest are shifting rapidly.
Prompt changes to your digital marketing strategy can have an immediate impact on your sales performance at no additional cost to you.
Also, you will provide your target audience with accurate information that can influence their decision-making process.
4. Low Cost
If you are focused on growing your business and making profits, then you need cost-effective ways to promote your products and services. This is very much achievable through digital marketing, in which you can still reach your target audience without spending too much money.
Even if you are on a limited budget, there are a variety of digital marketing techniques you can apply such as:
— Content Creation:
The content you create should be unique, evergreen, relevant, and offer value to your customers and web visitors. A smart idea would be to publish interesting guides or DIY’s about your products, that will keep your readers craving for more.
— Social Media:
The use of social media is a relatively cheap and easy way to market your business to a multitude of active users. You can also take advantage of the free features to monitor your reach and overall performance.
— Video Content:
Video is a relatively cheap and easy way to showcase a new product or service offering.
— Search Engine Optimization
SEO is one of the most cost-effective marketing strategies because it targets users who are actively looking for your products and services online. SEO’s inbound nature helps businesses save money.
5. Retarget Existing Customers
The likelihood of selling to an existing customer is higher than selling to a new customer. Also, the probability of a previous customer buying in bulk from you is higher than a new customer doing the same. Therefore, you need to invest an equal amount of time and effort into retargeting your existing customers.
Digital retargeting allows you to study previous actions taken by your customers, observe their buying habits, improve their experience using your brand, and at the same time sell them additional products.
6. Stay Competitive
The coronavirus outbreak has led countries to advocate for social distancing and self-isolation to disrupt its rapid spread.
Containment measures have also encouraged people to stay at home. As a result, they will be turning to the internet for their needs.
This is expected to cause a surge in online advertisements as there is now a huge consumption of online media.
With the rise of people stuck at home, it pays to get on the booming trend of home workouts and health advice. Industries in the medical realm could make tremendous use of healthcare SEO as the industry becomes increasingly saturated, you need to find ways to stay ahead.
Channelling your time, effort, energy, and resources into digital marketing particularly during this coronavirus pandemic, will give you an edge over your competitors who may not be quick to do the same.
Making it the perfect time to leverage the opportunity that the current situation presents and place your brand in a position to stand out.
7. Measure your Performance
The ability to measure individual online marketing campaigns is of immense advantage.
With Digital Marketing you can use a variety of premium tools to obtain rich and reliable data on the search pattern and habits of your customers.
These tools will evaluate, assess, and provide you with a comprehensive report of your online marketing efforts.
From the reports, you can then identify what works and what does not.
The digital marketing campaigns that are generating the bulk of traffic and resulting in conversions for your brand, should become your centre of focus, while the poor performing campaigns are crossed out from your digital marketing strategy.
8. Increase Market Share
For continuous sales and revenue generation, you need to obtain a significant share of your target market. A higher market share puts your brand in a superior position to receive a large influx of purchases and higher profits.
Obtaining a significant portion of your industry’s market share is not an easy task, but it is possible. The standard tactic would be to adopt innovative business practices, strengthen your relationship with customers, and deliver unmatched customer services. However, digital marketing is still an essential piece of the puzzle as it can help you break into emerging markets, attract new customers, increase your customer base, and expand your market share.
9. Build New Partnerships
Strong business collaborations (which benefits both parties in some way), can help propel your brand to the next level even as you reach out to a new audience, gain new customers, boost sales and grow.
Digital marketing can help you to develop and maintain solid business relationships with other top brands within your industry. Depending on your aim for forming a business partnership, be sure to always collaborate with an authentic and credible brand that’s focused on providing superb value to their clientele.
10. High Return on Investment (ROI)
Every business hopes to receive high returns on their investments, especially on every single marketing effort.
Digital marketing as a cost-effective solution for your brand has the potential to yield positive results and generate substantial returns to your investment.
The different forms of digital marketing including the use of email marketing, search engine optimization (SEO), social media, content creation, and so on can result in a significant rise in web traffic, generate new profitable leads, and prompt sales at relatively little or less cost.
In Conclusion
The unprecedented circumstances caused by the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic is a window for you to improve your brand’s presence.
Digital marketing is the best way to increase your brand’s visibility online, where a vast majority of your potential customers can be found.
However, for you to develop and implement an effective online marketing strategy, you need to study how consumer behaviour, preferences, and search habits are changing.
At a time when the coronavirus is putting many businesses on edge, it is time for you to strengthen your commitments to digital marketing, leverage the opportunity created by this crisis, and grow your business.
