As company’s meet and greets and in-person events all stopped abruptly while cities closed and social distancing happened within weeks of each other, the entire year of 2020 has been a whirlwind for companies and its consumers. 

To say it is a unique time in the United States is a bit of an understatement, and as cities continue to make changes each and every week, it can seem impossible to keep pace with everything that is happening right now. 

While the entire population is being asked to continue to stay at home as much as possible, this has changed consumers' online habits significantly. 

This does not only mean a spike in LinkedIn active users who are currently job hunting or the mass influx in the number of hours spent on TikTok, but overall, website and social media traffic has spiked considerably since the beginning of this pandemic seven months ago. 

While marketing during coronavirus (COVID-19) has posed a number of new challenges for marketers and its clients, this is where companies and its marketing strategies have swiftly been able to adapt their campaigns from months ago to continue with sales and KPIs in place, but at the same time, make sure that all messaging is relevant with its consumers. 

Where does a company who might be a bit behind the curve or just reopening even begin with everything that has happened or continues to happen? Follow our COVID 19 marketing guidelines: 

Understand that audiences’ behaviors have changed and drastically 

A consumer’s behavior before COVID-19 is possibly drastically different than during this pandemic for a number of reasons! SocialBakers conducted an audience research study to see just how much a consumer’s behavior has changed the last seven months with 52 percent of consumers' pandemic shopping behaviors to follow them post-pandemic as well. 

With 39 percent of consumers increasing their social media usage and 42 percent of them online shopping more, companies cannot afford to continue to disregard the implementation and success that digital marketing provides with the right strategies in place! 

Find the right agency or partner 

As a small business owner, management staff or even C-Suite, the first step in all of this is to find the best agency or partner that can provide your company with a plethora of digital services from a website design and development project to ongoing SEO strategies! 

Why is this the second most important place to begin? Because an agency can provide your company with the manpower and resources needed to successfully execute COVID 19 marketing digital marketing strategies and campaigns! 

You can’t go back to the dinosaur ages

From small to large businesses and companies, online sales are skyrocketing during COVID-19 with  19.3 percent of sales being online which is a 43 percent increase since March. This tells marketers that marketing during coronavirus means going online and continuing to stay online post-pandemic. 

Even if your company is not able to handle the influx or orders, sales or services with an e-commerce website, it is important to get your website out there and offer some type of your services and/or products via the website.

Even with a shrinking marketing budget, the digital marketing spend is expected to increase by 8.4 percent the rest of the year and in 2021. While this might be a small percentage, a company needs to realize that at the beginning of COVID-19, marketing budgets were significantly decreased in the panic of the pandemic. 

At the same time, consumers are still willing to pay full price for services and/ or products from companies that they are loyal to whether that is local coffee shops or corporations, continuing digital marketing and appearing in front of consumers will only continue to create a strong loyalty with current customers and create that initial trust and curiosity with new ones.

While a website is critical for a number of marketing strategies, what other strategies can you utilize right away? 

Local or national SEO has never been more important

Local and national SEO has never been more important for a company’s pre, during and post pandemic marketing strategies and success. While the statistics above show more and more consumers are online than before and local SEO can garner those local sales and loyal customers who are searching to support local! 

If a consumer can’t find your company, you are missing out on local foot traffic and online sales. For most companies who are implementing SEO, their audience is their city and surrounding areas of 200 miles. This means that their local competition is getting their new clientele. 

Even for a hyper-focused local SEO strategy, companies want to implement a national strategy as well. The Internet allows consumers from all over the globe to purchase products and services unlike ever before. 

And because of this, a company that is deemed authoritative and trustworthy in search engines and consumer’s eyes is going to overall do better over time versus a company who simply sticks with old strategies! 

A great way to start with local SEO is to get a Google My Business account started! This is what shows in the local SERP spots or Map Pack! From there, make sure that your company finds the best agency to help with on-page and off-page local and national SEO strategies! 

This agency should target different keywords based on their volume opportunities, local intent versus national intent and audience’s search behavior and patterns. From there, it is time to utilize one of the most common digital strategies out there! 

Utilize social media’s various options

With this in mind as well, companies can implement social media marketing into their strategies to help garner trust and gain a following at the same time!

 Social media marketing and paid advertising on social media campaigns continue to skyrocket and this helps with traditional advertising costs to easily cut down to half of their marketing dollars which are allocated to other strategies like SEO and even PPC marketing! 

An advertisement on traditional marketing channels can cost nearly double of a social media marketing advertisement and get even less reach and ROI due to the number of consumers who are streaming their television, not driving, scrolling through social media and not consuming traditional advertising. 

Our clients always ask, “how much will this cost?” It really depends on the budget in place. You can run a social media advertisement for as little as $10.00 a day or less and run it for a week or one month. 

However, when it comes to organic social media strategies, creating a loyal following and a like-minded audience is imperative! Post and create content that your audience wants to engage with, consume and even buy! 

A great example of this is yoga studios offering Zoom classes, virtual events on Facebook or Facebook Groups!  Find out what is important to them and where they are right now. 

That is a very, very long answer to the question, “Where does a company begin?” For more help with marketing during coronavirus or in Q1 of 2021, contact our experts today!