No one could anticipate while packing up their laptops and office essentials in March to work from home, that they’d continue video-conferencing from their living room several months later. Yet, here we are, in the strange and pressing new realities of life during the global pandemic. Many businesses and marketers are working towards navigating through this prolonged period of doubts for their brand.
As lockdowns begin to ease and the magnitude of the economic challenges become clear, organizations are staring at a future that is looking drastically different from the one they planned for at the beginning of 2020.
However, even amid uncertainty, opportunities for growth continue to exist. By adapting to the new normal, revising marketing strategies, and understanding the potential of the current market, businesses do have a shot at transforming their brands and connecting with their customers.
To help, we bring you four important marketing trends that apply during the era of COVID:
#1 – More Focus on Service and Trust
Due to the pandemic, many brands can no longer be aggressive with their messaging and marketing strategy. The last thing that consumers want is to come across a brand that is focused on capitalizing from the global crisis and making a profit. People are just not interested in any kind of pushiness from brands. They are expecting positive advertising, security, and community service from businesses.
To meet these expectations, brands are moving back to the basics of marketing i.e.
- Working towards a core purpose
- Putting customer needs first and prioritizing serving them in any way possible
- Simply trying to be helpful
Your business must connect and builds trust with your consumers. If you don’t strive to build genuine relationships with your customers, they won’t be interested in you once the pandemic settles down. It’s only during a crisis that brands are validated or invalidated by people.
#2 – Consumers Want Transparency
For consumers to trust your brand, transparency must be a priority. Businesses need to share information and make an effort to connect with their audience or consumers will find it from somewhere else. It’s best to overproduce content for customers than underproduce.
Now, transparency can come into play in many factors, but let’s look at a few here.
Your customer reviews are one of the first things that people will see before opting for your products or services. People want to know what others think of your brand. So give them just that. You can start by gathering up testimonials and case studies from your customers. After a purchase, reach out to them with a no-pressure, friendly message and invite them to write a review. If you have collaborated or worked with customers, create a case study together.
#3 – Mobile Needs to Be a Priority
Due to state lockdowns and home quarantines, people are turning to social media, online shopping, and home delivery. Retail sales have boosted despite the economic downtime, and companies like Amazon are working round the clock to keep up with the customer demands.
Mobile browsers have doubled up over the years and with the ongoing pandemic, people are going to be more dependent on their smartphones for purchases. Now is the time to build apps for smartphones or optimizing your website to make it more mobile-friendly.
You need to ensure that your mobile app and website have instant logins, smooth page transitions, and lightning-fast like speed. The reason being, a site that takes 1 second longer to load can drop down conversions by 7%. On the other hand, sub-second load times can increase conversion by a whopping 15-30%.
#4 People are Preferring Voice Search
With smart speakers like Alexa and smartphone tools like Google Assistant, people are preferring to use short phrases instead of typing. This is because a voice-enabled search is simply more convenient and faster. 40% of people use voice search at least once a day and this number is expected to grow. Moreover, experts predict that 50% of all online searches will be carried out through voice search.
The bottom line is, if your messaging and marketing materials are not written conversationally, you could miss out on quite a large portion of your target audience.
In conclusion, the lessons that businesses are learning now could quite possibly set the ways of working across their respective industries in the coming months. If you are looking for effective business ideas, smart marketing strategies, and powerful campaigns that will help you thrive in the COVID age, then get in touch with us. We look forward to hearing from you!