How the Novel CoronaVirus has Affected Online Marketing?

• By Gary B
• 06-05-2020
• Digital Marketing

The new reality of Coronavirus affects our perception of what surrounds us. We are more sensitive and, in general, we have much more time in our hands, which paints a new stage for brands and a great challenge for communication in the running time.

The way of doing business online amid the corona outbreak lead many establishments to cope up with this hard situation by operational readiness, and on the contrary, many are suffering due to the worst business situations ever experienced in their lifetime, anytime before.

Without much ado, let’s see how COVID-19 has changed the face of Online Marketing in the struggling era of 2020.

Corona’s Impact on Digital Marketing Supported with Some Plus & Minus

Some Negatives (-)

Changes in Search Traffic

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In these unprecedented times, it became crucial for every brand to serve and market well to compensate with their slashed budgets.

Consumer brands and healthcare brands were an exception among all, earning the highest gains in the search views which were influenced by publishing relevant, useful, and empathetic content related to COVID-19.

The news industry and financial space saw a skyrocketed surge in traffic whereas the travel industry saw massive drops. Travel related searches mostly included customer service requests and cancellations.

ecommerce is a category that saw mixed patterns where websites selling luxury goods saw a decrease in traffic and websites selling mandatory stuff (like baby diapers) experienced bumps in traffic and sales.

Decline in Conversions

The unforeseen situation of the pandemic has forced online businesses to witness huge drops in their sales. Even if the virus spread gets controlled as fast as in China, marketers have to face hardships, coming back to their fortune shape.

With people losing money, traffic, and conversions, we can expect the global economy to shrink where the novel CoronaVirus can cost the global economy $2.7 trillion.

From an SEO perspective when we compare the working spheres of major industries, very few of them have seen an upsurge while the majority have seen a decline in the traffic and conversions.

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Media, food, and healthcare being the exception, others saw a huge revenue hit in their business progression.

Change in Customer Behavior

With the economic downturn, consumer buying habits have not been the same as seen in the years before 2020. Shopping and spending over unnecessary elements have seen a growth in mid-March which wasn’t feasible in January and February.

Percentile of Online shopping by consumers accounted for:

● 31%, March 13-15
● 50%, March 27-29
● 49%, April 3-5
● 64%, April 10-12

The below-mentioned graphical representation gives insight into the myriad of categories for which people showed their interest to purchase amid the ongoing Corona crisis.

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Service Disruption in Small Businesses
Disappointment and fear came across to be seen among the marketers who had to forcefully shut down their services temporarily due to the corona crisis.

More than 50% of the business owners said that they won’t continue to operate in these tough circumstances.

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Monthly Publishing Decreased

The B2B community of brands saw a 50 percent decline in article publishing in February 2020 in comparison with the stats of December 2019. Nevertheless, a 10% increase in early March 2020, gave signs to return back to normal.

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Moreover, the focus was shifted to coronavirus content as in March 2020, coronavirus related mentions witnessed the highest peak to date.

With all the marketing efforts applied in the best possible way, numerous brands are still struggling to adapt to unexpected changes.

< strong>A Few Positives (+)

Enhanced Beauty & Personal Care Online Sale

Many fast-moving consumer goods have been in high demand in recent weeks and saw an upsurge in their online sales. As masses showed pique interest in healthcare products like soaps and hand sanitizers, in the same way, they are concerned with personal care during this time.

There has been a 41% increase in search engines for the beauty and personal care industry. Many brands in these verticals have seen a boom on the Google results page with much higher conversion rates (CVR).

CEO, Jean-Paul Agon, revealed that L'Oréal increased its sales of color cosmetic and skin care products through its e-commerce platform in February in China.

Automotors Expect more Online Inquiries

Businesses who made a transition from offline to online, leveraging SEO digital marketing, saw a huge change in the buying patterns of their services. For home-bound customers, automobile companies have facilitated customers to witness a digitized sales process.

Provisions to seek:
● Virtual tour of vehicles
● Feasible financing options
● Online quotation
● Vehicle delivery at the doorstep (after completion of the online purchase process)

Maruti Suzuki witnessed 20% of the digital inquiries out of the total inquiries for online bookings before the lockdown and the percentage raised to 30-35% amid running weeks of lockdown.

Homeschooling Equipment saw an Upsurge

For families and young adults, few aspects of life were as affected as education. When schools and universities closed, people were quick to understand what impact this would have on their curriculum and their child's education.

Thanks to Distance Learning which would not have been made possible by tech-aided homeschooling equipment and web conferencing tools like WebEx, Zoom, Google Classrooms, and many others.

The sale of Online learning software tools ascended by 700% amidst the COVID-19 outbreak.”

Banjo Robinson, an ed-tech company based in London, UK, engages children with interactive and intuitive penpal sessions and experienced tremendous growth of their business, acquiring a five-fold increase in their daily sales.

Afterwords
As the global audience is self-isolated and home-bound, many ios and android app development company have seen fortunes while many have seen sorrows in their business, waving the global economy with the maximum of the adverse effects reasoned to novel Coronavirus.

The deadly virus hasn’t left aside any nation, the field of work, business, age group, religion and has led the whole human community to suffer the never expected odds.

Is your organization looking forward or backward?