How COVID-19 Affected Marketing

COVID-19 affected businesses far and wide. Nearly every week at the moment, we saw reports of businesses facing financial crisis, mass redundancies and catastrophic changes to our economy.

As many businesses adapted to remote working, all marketing efforts have became remote in the process. However, innovation has always been crucial to marketing.

Adapting to Marketing Changes

When a marketing strategy is produced, environmental factors, just like COVID-19, become part of the marketing audit process. Performing this audit determines how we adapt our marketing tactics and how we spend our marketing budgets. A good marketing strategy also includes a contingency plan, so for any risk or crisis, there’s always a back-up plan.

To reiterate, innovation is not a new concept for marketeers. It’s the new marketing initiatives that have kept businesses going. Granted, many businesses have not been able to continue trading due to social distancing rules, and many have had to furlough staff due to their products or services not being needed during a time of global crisis.

However, marketing teams that have continued to work throughout Covid-19 have had to focus most of their efforts on online activities. Many events that would’ve taken place at a venue have been held as webinars. For some businesses, this has been more advantageous as they’ve been able to follow up with attendees without any hassle.

Engagement has not been a problem where webinars are involved. However, when we look at channels such as LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook, many have increased their social media activities as rival companies have done the same. In a similar effort to increase engagement whilst keeping costs to a minimum, businesses have increased their online resources and online content. Whilst SEO might still be a focus, many businesses have scaled back on PPC advertising. Cost-per-click for paid search campaigns dramatically decreased after the announcement of lockdown back in March.

It’s fairly well known that the success rate of selling to an existing customer you is 60-70%, while the success rate of selling to a new customer is 5-20%. Whilst some marketing teams have focused their efforts on growth hacking and acquisition, other businesses have had scale back their marketing budget and have thought about the ways in which they can add value to their existing customer base. Still, sales and marketing teams have had to be proactive to retain customers. They’ve managed to adapt their communication methods to maintain a rapport with their client base. With all processes being taken online, COVID-19 has also provided a time to gain invaluable customer insights, to find out what customers really want and to offer a more personalised service.

All in all, the competition has never been higher in the digital world of marketing. To continue to survive, whether focus is on acquisition or retention, marketing teams must continue to adapt and continue to provide customers value. If you would like to find out how your marketing strategy can be improved, please do not hesitate to contact us.