Shadab KhanThe Covid-19 Pandemic has affected every business in its vicinity; it does not matter if it is a small-scale business or a Multinational Company. Countries have been on lockdown for so long now that it has resulted in the closing of businesses or having losses. Brands grabbed this opportunity to work on their digital marketing so that they can be easily accessible to their audience.
We should get to know what Digital Marketing is. It is a kind of marketing that uses the Internet of technology as its main channel to promote a company, its products, and services. Although it has been on trend since the 2000s, Digital Marketing fully flourished in 2019 because of the dooming pandemic. Due to Covid-19, the businesses that were popular through ‘word of mouth’ in brick-and-mortar marketplaces, needed to be shut down. This is where Digital Marketing Services come into play like SEO, PPC, digital advertisements, content marketing, and more.
Now, let’s see how it has helped businesses during the pandemic.
- Easily Engaging and Retaining Existing Customers
As people are locked in their homes for such a long time now, they are stuck on their screens most of the time. So, as your company makes a presence on digital platforms, it makes it easier for them to directly reach you. For example, being available digitally where you can directly sell them products without coming to the shop, customers will continue buying the products from your company, hence retaining your customers in the process.
Companies have to produce good content so that you keep engaging more people and spiking their interest in your products and services.
- Proper Budgeting Decisions for Ads Lead to an Increase in Your Customers
Traditional Ad Campaigns vs. Digital Ad Campaigns are the topic for intense discussion.
Traditionally, companies used to put ads in newspapers, billboards, televisions, radio, etc. which used to be pricey, to say the least, and they did not target your audience according to their need for the product. All ads were printed for those who can see but they were specially shown to the people who would like to buy them.
Now, with platforms like social media, podcasts, and websites, audiences can be expertly targeted as per your knowledge of the demographic that uses the product. You can do marketing of your brand on different social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and more. These platforms provide different options for paid advertisement promotion that targets your audiences. In this case, ads are shown to only those who have been searching for a product like that but also if they fall into the company’s segmenting option. As those people click on the ad, there’s a chance they will consider buying the product or service they are shown.
- Brand Visibility and Awareness
Digital marketing channels are more interactive. That means when the brand posts something on their social channels or blogs, people interact in the form of likes, comments, sharing the post, and saving. This way they are more involved in the process as well as involving more people to join the discussion that increases brand visibility and awareness within people. Giveaways and podcasts also increase visibility on social platforms.
Brands invest in PPC (Pay Per Click) ads to take advantage of internet traffic by the increase in visibility and awareness
- Online Shift of Traditional Events and Networking
Traditional events such as promotional events and collaborations could not happen because of the social distancing rule imposed during the pandemic. Companies could not be dependent on traditional events. Digital Marketing helped all of those events and networkings to be conducted online. Applications like Zoom, Google Meet, and others help with online events and collaborations.
Social media apps played a big role in the expansion of networking for businesses. Brands directly connected with those people whom they admired and collaborated with for the promotion of their products and services. Small businesses were affected positively at this time because of going digital.
- No Need for Physical Appearance for Promotion
If you are a small business and want to promote your products, you need not go anywhere for marketing and branding like door-to-door and printing banners. All the physical proof for the promotion that includes banners, pamphlets, newspapers, and more, are not needed to market your products or services. You can just opt for a targeted digital marketing channel and start your marketing activities. This can be very easy if the brand can produce sensational content for social media channels for promotion.
- Outreach for New Customers
Customer outreach is the process of connecting and communicating with potential customers and of course, existing ones. If you make your presence felt on social media platforms with exclusive and engaging content, it will attract new customers. The attention span of people on social media is very less. People only stay on a post for most of 3 seconds, if it attracts them with its design and unique content; they are more likely to explore your page. Digital Marketing and different facets of designing have helped many brands to gain more followers because of their creativeness.
- Digital Marketing is Cost-Effective
Features such as insights of how the strategy is working, website traffic, demographic of people visiting your post, and other advantages of insights immensely help businesses. This feature helps in determining if you are attracting the right demographic for your product and whether or not people are visiting your website or social media handles. It helps in the continuous evaluation of the project and if it is working.
Measuring Return on Investment can help in deciding the recourse of your campaign and rerouting resources for the right projects. Some cost-effective digital marketing strategies are E-mail Marketing, SEO, PPC, Content Marketing, and Social Media Marketing.
- Wider Geographical Reach
Physical infrastructure can only be visited by people who live near the company and only those people who have access to the products sold by the brand but as brands move on digital platforms, there is no physical conformity and a geographical barrier between people and the brand. This can help brands to get more business because they are accessible to a wider audience because of online business. Digital Marketing helps the geographical expansion of the business.
- Reaching Customers Through a Variety of Devices
To reach a wider range of customers, both parties need to have an internet connection and an instrument of technology. In this time of the pandemic, people are mostly online on devices like mobile phones, laptops, tablets, or desktops, scrolling social media platforms and using the Internet. Using all platforms to reach specifically targeted users is called Cross-Device Marketing.
Brands understand that their audiences don’t stick to one device, for example, they use social media on mobiles but retail shop on laptops. They track all devices using cookies then cross-market using different platforms.
Final Thoughts
We all understand how businesses suffered because of the Covid -19 Pandemic but Digital Marketing was like a ray of hope for those businesses. Those brands which grabbed the opportunity to be present digitally found a new way to do business and gain new customers. Digital Marketing upgraded their traditional way of working and developed brand visibility among the audience. It still is uncertain when the world will move from a standstill, but the digital world will continue to work in favor of businesses.
This article was written for Business 2 Community by Shadab Khan.
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