Precisely, every other marketer faces some or other challenges — however, it may be different. While for some it would be challenging to get the right pool of talents, for others procurement of the right technology could be worrying day & night.
But, whatever may be the case, there is always space & the scope to improve the situation & skillfully optimize the strategies. There’s always room for improvement & effective revenue generation. In the past few months, the complete scenario has changed drastically. The outbreak of the pandemic has affected almost every sector. There are surprising trends since the lockdown and the outbreak of the pandemic.
So, what’s getting affected? Let’s take a look at the challenges before further moving to the solutions.
- Noticeably reduced budget.
- Changed economic environment.
- Increased Focus on brand’s Reaction.
Increased need for being technologically sound.
To start with COVID-19 has affected supremely as to how the global market & businesses are functioning. People are staying at home and hardly have any motivation for buyers and audiences to shop online.
- Reduced marketing budget.
The episode of COVID-19 has subjugated the marketing budget to a huge extent. Clearly stating, marketing is not considered the critical mission for any organization or business. So whenever there is a catastrophe or something unusual, the first department on which the budget is reduced is marketing. Marketers are given almost unachievable targets in way too low budgets.
What to do?
Strengthen the customer support system: This can be skillfully dealt with by strengthening the customer’s support system. Being always ready with a solution could be a great solution. While you have a short on budget on marketing during COVID-19 make sure that you are responding to the customer queries through different channels. Go the extra mile to resolve their queries and get every single user a solution satisfactorily. Meanwhile, you have no budget to get involved in too many things, just tighten your customer support system. Analyze with the team, every single query coming from the user and deal with it one-to-one.
- Changed economic environment.
It’s not as normal as it used to be a few months back. COVID-19 has brought out a lot of transformations in our lives. The marketing mix has a variety of constraints & complexities to be dealt with. Amidst this transforming situation & the digital landscape all flooded with news that cautious the sentiments of the customers, it is difficult for them to get through the clutter. Most buyers stay home and marketing becomes obsolete for them. Most key events are postponed and are pushed back to a virtual environment.
What to do?
Be Sensitive to the Current situation: You as a marketer, have to make out strong & staunch marketing strategies to deal with the situation. Marketers must be sensitive to the current situation & tweak their marketing messages accordingly keeping in mind how COVID-19 has affected it. Amidst all this, it is important to manage your brand’s reputation. Companies should use advanced custom social-listening and other listening tools to scan keyword mentions and brands. This will provide insights and help with identifying the potential areas of improvement.
- Increased Expectations on how Brands are responding to COVID-19.
During the current environment, we are living in, which is both fearful & something that makes us jittery — customers have started paying close attention to how the brand is responding to it. People have become more cautious — if the brands they are seeking to associate with are reporting, listening & adapting to the current situation or not. Tweaking that approach around COVID-19 & the prevailing situation can only help to stand in these unusual circumstances.
What to do?
Tweak around your marketing strategies: When we are in some unusual circumstances, marketers & businesses should focus on convincing their audiences that enough measures are being taken with respect to combat the prevailing situations. With COVID-19 at the forefront, make sure to assure that audiences’ sentiment is on top of your priority.
- Increased need to be technically sound.
With COVID-19 affecting every area of our lives, for the most part of our days, we are staying indoors. The mode of communications has shifted to virtual from real and therefore, the need for a technically sound system is evident. The businesses thrive, applying the technology principles for satisfactory virtual customer experience has become inevitable. In addition to that, your capability to correctly track analytics across different customer touchpoints has become a determining factor for the success of businesses during COVID-19.
What to Do?
Empower Remote teams: Rapid delivery labs are one of those solutions — This will help drive the business forward & maintain productivity. These labs enable companies to collaborate in environments where prototyping, iteration & ideation helps. This further helps with increasing sales, providing tools for internal collaborations, content management & optimizing the workflow.
Tweaking the marketing strategies is necessary to function in circumstances like COVID-19. You must have more-flexible operating models that can convince your audience & make them feel safe. Currently, most marketers are facing challenges because of the reduced marketing budget, changed economic environment, increased expectations on how brands are responding to the pandemic & more. But, strategically done this will also pass & businesses can navigate through this situation.
At AdMedia, we are working out on our website refresh with new developments like engaging millions of Facebook users outside of Facebook, contextual advertising, improved native advertising techniques, display advertising, remarketing, and more, keeping in mind the prevailing COVID-19 situation.