2020 and the emergence of COVID-19 has altered the way we all live and work, including the world of Digital Marketing. While the pandemic’s full impact is still to be determined, its effects on Digital Marketing has been profound as people increasingly go online to meet their day-to-day needs. From SEO to the way businesses interact with consumers, the script is being rewritten for better and for worse.
The way we interact with each other has significantly changed, so it doesn’t come as a surprise that companies also need to change how they interact with customers. From giving back to the community by offering free services to putting a positive emphasis on marketing messaging, most businesses have had to shift their digital strategy in order to adjust to this new world order.
For many companies who hadn’t already gone online, 2020 was the ‘point of no return’. With customers spending more time online than ever and looking for information and safer ways to shop, online is now a ‘must have’ even for services industries.
2020 has profoundly changed online consumer behaviour. For lunch or dinner options, instead of searching for restaurants closest to our locations, we are searching for delivery options. We are more online than ever before. Online appointments are now the norm for many businesses. Online meetings and Zoom calls are on the rise while face-to-face interactions are on the decline due to the COVID-19 crisis. Consumers are hopping on websites and communicating through brand’s social media platforms more than ever.
Digital marketing is one of the best and most cost-effective ways for businesses to reach their target audiences. New behavioral practices like social distancing are accelerating consumers’ use of e-commerce options, forcing traditional marketing to take a backseat. As interpersonal communication declines, businesses are becoming more reliant on digital tools and other accessories to accomplish their goals, I.e., Facebook Messenger, live chat on websites, text message marketing, etc.
Brands investing in SEO may have initially seen a decline in revenue when the pandemic began but now may be seeing a rise.
2020 has been a challenging year for most businesses, and marketers have had to put their thinking caps on and adapt quicker than ever. The good news however is that many of these changes, are likely to be with us for the foreseeable future, and in a way this has been a year of accelerated learning and finally executing those plans many have been talking about, but just haven’t had the urgency to follow through on.
What will 2021 hold? Only time will tell.
The Publisher Management Team
