Social Marketing During The Pandemic

America’s changing – fast. How consumers think, behave, see themselves and the world around them is changing too. The coronavirus outbreak is having a very real impact on consumer behaviors, attitudes and perceptions. The sudden increase of people being indoors and more and more people working from home due to the coronavirus has led to a change in lifestyle where consumers have shifted to spending more time online than ever before. Brands already catering to the ‘sofa-surfers’ have shown to have not been affected and many have even seen an increase in sales. Brands that are traditionally offline have innovated new online products and services in an effort to adapt to this new way of living.

There is a move from offline media to online. Marketers in recent studies made clear that they would take a more online approach. This budget shift is not surprising considering that digital (social) media is consumed at a higher rate due to the online lifestyle of the post-corona consumer.

This is a new time for the consumer. Now that many are staying indoors we are seeing a new type of online behavior. Consumers spend more time on social media than ever before. Marketers now have the opportunity to capture more eye-balls by advertising on these platforms... sometimes at a lower cost than the pre-corona period.

For any business an online presence has never been as important as today. Try to treat your daily work as business as usual, but keep it digital.

• Locate your target audience and how their lifestyle has changed and map out how you should be targeting them.

• What is your target audience’s emotional context?

• What do they want to know?

• How should you be communicating with them?

Do not underestimate how the coronavirus has changed your customers and how it has affected their demands. More digital solutions need to be considered for all industries.

What Marketing  Strategy Should You Be  Utilizing Now?

Some brands are pulling or pausing their ad spending as the COVID-19 crisis puts a strain on their businesses, but new research shows that consumers do not want them to stop advertising altogether.

A March 2020 survey by GlobalWebIndex asked internet users in 13 markets whether brands should continue advertising as normal. Nearly four in 10 US respondents ages 16 to 64 agreed, and a similar share (35%) were neutral, compared with 28% who disagreed. 

But 77% of respondents said they wanted advertising to “talk about how the brand is helpful in the new everyday life,” and 75% said it should “inform about [the brand’s] efforts to face the situation.” In another March 2020 survey from Kantar, just 8% of consumers in 30 countries thought that stopping advertising should be a priority for brands. 

Conclusion

This suggests that while consumers don’t expect brands to abandon advertising they should rethink strategies. Marketing campaigns that were planned pre-pandemic may no longer be appropriate as consumers clamor for online solutions in this new era of social distancing.