How COVID-19 Transformed Digital Marketing Forever?

The COVID-19 pandemic had an impact on various different industries. Many of them were pushed to adapt and adhere to a digital-first approach. Several companies introduced various new methods and processes to recover from the crisis that has been prevalent since the start of the pandemic. Amongst these greatly impacted industries is the digital marketing industry. The digital marketing departments of different companies had to be on their toes to bring innovative ideas for getting their brands to people. Consumers have moved dramatically towards online channels, and companies and industries have responded in turn by adapting to new digital marketing practices.

Why Digital Marketing?

There is no denying that this past year has been challenging for absolutely everyone. But some sectors of the corporate sector went through some extremely rapid changes. Digital marketing received an immense thrust during these pandemic times. 

The goal of digital marketing is to align the brand with customer preferences and needs. That’s why the digital marketing industry was greatly impacted because the needs and preferences of the customers changed.

The two elements that are a part of digital marketing are new marketing channels that are entirely online and the forensic trail of evidence in the form of digital data left by the customers that enable storing, tracking, and monetizing every marketing campaign through its channels. These two elements help marketers stay on foot despite the prevalent pandemic last year.

Changing Consumer Behaviours and Buying Patterns

Consumer buying patterns also shifted along with fluctuations in marketing trends. In every market, consumers are the drivers of market competitiveness, growth, and economic integration. With economic instability, consumers were also experiencing a transformation in behavior. Buyer preferences were disrupted through 2020. This also led to changes in how consumers wanted to interact with brands because of their own changing content consumption preferences. With new norms like contactless payments, contactless shopping, marketers, and salespeople had to adopt an approach that would allow them to position themselves as a humane brand. Studies show that customers today consciously look to interact with brands that are either local or those that prioritize issues related to health and safety.

Different Digital Marketing Tools and The COVID-19 Pandemic 

There are multiple digital marketing tools that come into play when it comes to familiarizing, advertising, and selling the products to the customer. Some of these digital marketing tools include search engine optimization, pay-per-click, social media marketing, e-commerce, and marketing analytics. Most of these tools were greatly impacted by the pandemic. Some of the changes caused by the impact are as follows:

Impact of COVID-19 on Search Engine Optimization

After the world was hit by the first wave of the coronavirus, many user search patterns changed. People started searching for COVID-19 related topics, and access to accurate and timely information became critical. Besides COVID-19 people were also interested in topics like hobbies, music, fitness, and indoor activities. Therefore providing the users witn evergreen content became extremely important and using the right keywords that are pandemic related became a key ranking factor. 

As small, brick-and-mortar businesses suffered due to the pandemic, Local SEO became an increasingly important investment. In many cases because of the COVID-19 restriction, local businesses are the safest and most convenient options for consumers. More people started searching for local businesses online during the pandemic. These businesses wanted to make sure they show up when people are looking for places nearby to fulfill their needs, which made the adoption of local search engine optimization practices increasingly popular.

The Impact of COVID-19 on PPC

PPC can be beneficial for online advertisement, only if a click earns you more than your ad bidding amount.  A shift is observed in Google search advertisements during the pandemic, which has started to diminish unassumingly, falling 7%  below average. Different types of industries faced different crises, the travel, restaurant, construction, retail, and clothing industry went through a period of losses and decline while some industries witnessed a boom during the pandemic like entertainment, e-commerce, video conferencing, and media. People showed a keen interest in ads that were about these topics, eventually adding up to the website traffic and affecting PPC 

The Impact of COVID-19 on Social Media Marketing

The pandemic brought in a number of digital transformations. Social media played a key role in this wave of digital transformation. People who were already quite used to different social media platforms started spending more time online and using social media more frequently than usual. According to reports, 46 to 51 percent of American adults started using social media more since the outbreak began. 

People also started engaging with social advertisements. A report indicated that the number of mobile internet users engaging with online ads has increased by 15 percent during the crisis.

Influencer marketing also witnessed a significant boost during the pandemic. Due to the physical restrictions, social media users are naturally inclined to seek interpersonal connections, which resulted in social media users turning to influencers and their content for entertainment. 

The Impact of COVID-19 on Ecommerce

The rapid growth of the e-commerce industry during the pandemic was hard to ignore, as consumers shopped online often out of necessity, and brands were forced to rapidly change their strategies as a result. According to an analysis, 9 out of the top 10 global e-commerce companies (by revenue) experienced double-digit growth in 2020 as new consumer habits swayed in their favor.

Globally, twenty-five percent of consumers have said they would prefer to continue shopping online for groceries rather than venturing in-store, even after the pandemic. 74% of US consumers are likely to purchase grocery items online. In a survey published in March 2021, U.S. consumers were asked about the important attributes while shopping online in view of the current coronavirus and lockdown measures. The most popular answers provided by respondents were in-stock availability of desired items and fast and reliable delivery, with 43 percent of respondents citing these as the most important attributes to them. When it comes to the types of products the US consumers bought during the pandemic, 45 percent of consumers in the United States mostly shopped for apparel online and close to a third of U.S. consumers primarily bought personal care products online.

The Impact of COVID-19 on Marketing Analytics

The major factors driving the growth of COVID-19 impact on the analytics industry include increasing demand for digital transformation, increased investments in analytics, growing demand for remote services and location data, and increasing need for real-time information to track and monitor the COVID-19 spread. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the healthcare industry vertical was under immense pressure to enhance and provide PPE, ventilators, and antiviral drugs across the world. Healthcare organizations started using advanced technologies, such as analytics, AI, and machine learning to analyze the complex data around COVID-19 to monitor and reduce the impact of the virus.

The Marketing Analytics Market was valued at USD 2.13 billion in 2020 and is expected to reach USD 4.68 billion by 2026. The benefits of analytics have become highly obvious for companies as the competition for the retention of customers has become a necessity for businesses.

Final Word

Digital marketing is fast becoming an essential part of marketing and brand promotion activities, especially due to the increasing pull towards online business. It’s important to keep up with all the important digital marketing trends especially the ones that became significant during the pandemic. 

Let the expert digital marketer at NX3Corp help you successfully implement these new digital trends into your business so you can benefit from them substantially.