During the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, most state and local governments created and enforced stay-at-home orders to help slow the transmission of the novel coronavirus. With movie theaters, swimming pools, bowling alleys, churches, and other large venues locked down, people turned to other activities to fill their hours—and much of those involved screens. These are the top ways marketing is changing in the post-COVID era.
COVID Driven Online Consumption
According to the first edition of Zenith’s Communication’s Media Consumption Forecasts published in 2015, the typical adult spent 80-130 minutes per day online. By 2021, says Zenith’s Head of Forecasting Jonathan Barnard—spurred on by fewer outside entertainment options, faster connections, and more live-streaming events—the average consumer is expected to spend 479 minutes per day consuming media online.
If this sounds outlandish, check your own recent mobile Internet usage on your smartphone or tablet. Now compare that with your usage from earlier this year. Surprised? Most people are.
If you’re in business, let’s talk about how this increased usage impacts data collection, and what you need to be aware of to leverage this new information in a way that benefits your bottom line.
So many consumers at home and online during the coronavirus pandemic has caused a spike in data collection. But more is not always better. While this vast increase in data may seem beneficial, without a baseline, relying on it too heavily to predict future behavior would be a mistake. At least a moderate level of historical data is critical to understand the meaning behind the new data.
Increases in Data Collection
In the future, entrepreneurs and/or business leaders should take care to avoid relying too heavily on information from this recent data windfall. According to Gartner, Inc, a leading research and advisory company in the global marketplace, bad data can cost a business an average of $15 million per year in losses. Instead, use your intuition and the insight you have gained from past experience to drive future decisions pending a more thorough, comparative understanding of what new data appears to indicate.
Consider the following points as you move forward:
• Continue building your brand and communicating your values in clear, robust ways.
• Take advantage of the average consumer’s skyrocketing screen time to leverage digital marketing fully. Enlist the help of digital marketers with a thorough understanding of data analytics to help sort and interpret data and convert it into helpful information for you and your team to consider when making business decisions.
• Inbound marketing remains the best way to convert leads into loyal customers. Pay special attention to it so you can build relationships online in the absence of more frequent in-person meetings and encounters. According to HubSpot, 61% of marketers say improving SEO and growing their organic presence is their top inbound marketing priority. A recent study from think-tank Forrester Research would seem to indicate that companies can generate 50% more sales-ready leads at 33% lower costs through creative, effective inbound marketing.
• Content remains king. Emphasize its creation and quality as a key portion of your inbound marketing efforts, positioning it strategically with your other online products and solutions. A survey by HubSpot also revealed that 55% of marketing professionals surveyed said blog content creation is their top inbound marketing priority.
• Revisit your marketing personas. Have they changed in light of the pandemic in any way? If so, modify your marketing messaging to be sure you are continuing to reach them.
Your business should never be static, even under stable, normal conditions. How you respond to the pandemic will ignite even greater changes in the way you do business. Be intentional and use your intuition and industry knowledge to keep driving leads, closing sales, and increasing revenue.
Few people anticipated the sweeping impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, yet here we are, like it or not, living through historic times. Some companies have chosen to draw inward and wait out the storm; others are modifying everything but their core values on the fly. How a company markets itself during the pandemic is a powerful indicator of how well they will be able to re-enter the post-COVID business arena.