Digital Marketing Trends to Follow in COVID-19 Times [2020]

It won’t be wrong to accept that our thoughts, conversations, screens are screaming about coronavirus and we are helpless. This is going to prevail for many more months to come. But we are privileged to have something that the previous pandemics have not been blessed with – The Internet.

The lockdowns across the globe have surely got a lot of countries in a significant economic landslide. We’re now confronting the highly complicated process of “reopening.” It’s very different — and it turns out that it’s even harder than the decision to retrench, retreat, and shut down. The question that we need to ask ourselves, being in the top tier of a company is, what strategies can be adopted during this pandemic? How to figure out a new way to become profitable again in this volatile situation?

It is difficult to predict what a post-pandemic reality would look like for organizations, but one thing is definite: digital channels are more important than ever. Online marketing trends can be taken advantage of, as people continue to self-isolate and spend more time online. In a recent survey, it has been observed that internet traffic has been up 10 to 20 percent in the US since the first week of February.

Best Digital Marketing Trends to focus on

To cope up with the struggle, here listed are some of the latest digital marketing trends in covid times worth focusing on amid the COVID-19 lockdowns, which could help to maximize response and subsequent sales performance.

Interactive Content

One of the simplest and widely used digital marketing trends is to create a variety of interactive content. This gives you the opportunity to connect your target audience with your brand. Interactive content is becoming more and more accessible — around the world, most people are using smartphones, tablets, and laptops to reach content as part of their daily routines. Interactive content is 81% more effective at grabbing people’s attention than static content. If you can engage your audience with something they can participate in and put their views out there in any way possible, ending up clicking on your Call-to-action button, there is nothing better than that.

Interactive content can include Infographics, Videos, Quizzes, Ebooks, Contests, Assessments Polls and Surveys, Games, Calculators, and anything creative that you can come up with specific to your product/service.

The idea is to go beyond just creating content – provide solutions that really keep your audience’s focus, acting like a call-to-action in itself. This results in increased engagement, a greater conversion rate, more brand awareness, and loyal future clients.

AR and VR

Move over simple digital marketing tactics – Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality are the biggest disruptors to ever hit the digital marketing industry in recent times. The need to be more engaging and immersive has given rise to brands across all the industries to adopt gimmicks like AR & VR to seamlessly connect with their target audience.

By 2022, 70% of enterprises will be experimenting with AR & VR for consumer and enterprise use and 25% will have deployed to production. AR & VR surely takes Storytelling, Experiential Marketing, Brand Experience & Interaction, and Personalized Marketing to another level, creating a pull for the potential customer to make their purchase decision making it the most sought after digital marketing trends of the year ahead.

New-breed SEO

Out of all the digital marketing trends, SEO is going to be a smart investment to ramp up your marketing game. People are spending more time online more than they ever have before. The major advantage of SEO is that it is extremely cost-effective and pays off very well in the longer run.

In a recent survey, 34% of the CXO-level respondents said they would invest in SEO more in these times of economic slowdown. Forrester estimates spending $1.3 million on organic search gives an organization an equivalent value to spending $12 million on ad placements.

With the ever-changing algorithms and the amount of search increased in recent times, it is a good time to improve on your quality of search results and be prepared for a new breed of SEO.

Social Commerce

When we combine two major flourishing avenues – Social Media and eCommerce and make them work as Social Commerce, a new revolution in the digital marketing world is created. When products are purchased directly through social platforms, advertising, or publications, without leaving the website or application, it is defined as Social Commerce.

At least 54% of people on social networks use them to monitor the products they want to buy. The idea is to cut down the number of steps required by the consumer to purchase. Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, etc provide plugins, CTAs to eCommerce sites that can help brands directly sell via social platforms.

Smart Bidding in Google Ads

A smart way of using machine learning by Google Ads that can optimize bids for the conversion is termed as Smart Bidding. The ability to choose conversion actions at the campaign level in accordance with specific time periods while in the bid process can become a game-changer and this trend of digital marketing could help businesses in the longer run.

Google’s Automated Bidding has played a major role in aiding to simplify campaigns both in terms of strategy and execution, with automation tools like Maximise Clicks, Target Impression Share, Tarte Cost per Acquisition (CPA), Target Return on Ad Spend (ROAS), Maximise Conversions and Conversion Value guiding through simple steps to achieve their goals.

Email Marketing

The good old email marketing strategy is just an evergreen way to achieve your marketing goals. Devise a new email marketing strategy that adds a certain value to the lives of your customers. You can directly connect with your customers this way in the most empathetic and friendly way.

This is the real-time to build a loyal customer base. Businesses have also experienced an increase in email open rate (21.2%) and click rate (13.7%). Limited, tactical, and admissible email marketing is valued now more than ever. Invest more time and audit your marketing campaigns with creative and engaging content that appeals to your audience.

Chatbots

Even during a period of physical distancing, your customers still want to interact with your brand, but now they’re demanding that those interactions be different. Chatbots are the perfect self-service tools that empower your customers with 24/7 availability.

Chatbots can help in easing the burden and prevent churn for both customers as well as employees. The global chatbot market is projected to reach USD 102.29 billion by 2025, registering a CAGR of 34.75% over the forecast period, 2020 – 2025, according to US-based Mordor Intelligence.

Source: How Digital Marketing Trends Have Changed Since COVID-19 Pandemic