The COVID-19 pandemic has not only altered our way of life but also how businesses think about their online presence. Although things seem uncertain right now and are difficult to predict, it is important to know that there are effective adjustments you can make to your digital marketing strategy that will bring solutions that can also meet your customers’ needs. Let us take a look at some important digital marketing trends that are developing amidst this pandemic and how you can a proactive and effective response be generated.
The Trend: In-Person Store Visits Nearly Eliminated
Since the start of the Covid19 pandemic, businesses have seen in-person store visits drop by almost 90%. This unexpected limited footfall, that most businesses rely on, has affected the way advertisers and businesses handle their digital needs.
Solution 1: Website Maintenance
This is the foundation of any organization’s online existence, and what ties all things digital together. That being said, one has to make sure that the website is optimized and running smoothly. Such optimizations include making sure your site speed is up to standard, and your landing pages are refined which in turn will directly affect your PPC efforts since this is where your ads are leading to.
Solution 2: Google My Business
Getting the business listed on Google is crucial. With the physical visits either being eliminated or altered, one needs to make sure that the updated business hours, address, any posts, or photos as well as reviews are properly and accurately displayed. With most of these attributes being modified, it is important to make sure the right information is available to the customers.
Solution 3: Social Media
The importance of social media has increased more than ever. It is important to stay active and use the social channels as a tool of communication with customers. Being active on these channels builds a level of trust for the customer and lets them know that the business is still open but operating in a different manner now.
Solution 4: eCommerce
To put any business in the best position for success, think about adjustments that can be made to meet the customers’ new needs. One way to keep the sales flowing in is by adding eCommerce to the website if it is applicable to the customers and the product line. It is important to stay proactive and have options available to the customers.
Solution 5: Self Promotion
Once the foundation pieces are in place, get to promoting! Make sure proper research and analysis is done to take advantage of all available paid marketing avenues. The prominent mediums are Google Ads, Microsoft Ads, and Facebook as well as other social media outlets such as Instagram and LinkedIn.
The Trend: Online Searches Dominated By COVID-19
The COVID pandemic has had a major impact on what we are seeing in users’ online behaviour. Anything related to COVID is dominating searches which mean the paid search marketing strategy needs to be modified accordingly.
Solution 1: Search Query Reports
Adjusting the paid search campaigns for these new search terms and volume that is coming in becomes important. Search terms should be reviewed regularly in order to understand what sort of traffic the website is receiving.
Solution 2: Negative Keywords
Along with running more frequent search query reports for your campaigns, it is important to add the right negative keywords that could have a detrimental effect on the campaigns. With the new type of traffic that is coming through, there are also more irrelevant terms within those queries. Flushing out these irrelevant terms ensures that the budget does not bleed on non-required keywords.
Solution 3: Follow Trending Searches
Google Trends is as an effective tool to dissect and understand how people are searching. Trends, includes a new hub specifically related to Coronavirus search trends. Here, one can review on a regular basis to see how people are modifying their searches, which will help when filtering through the keywords in PPC campaigns.
The Trend: Declining Mobile Traffic
This is where there’s more detail in the paid search strategy. Besides what we are seeing in new traffic, we are also seeing new places this traffic is coming from. In the past few months, Google saw paid search mobile search traffic cut by more than 25% due to the pandemic.
Solution 1: Device Bid Adjustments
One area that can be capitalized on this within the PPC account is by revisiting device bid adjustments. Generally, this type of adjustment based on specific data with campaigns, but now due to the pandemic one needs to take into account that more users are going back to their desktop.
Solution 2: Smart Bidding
Secondly, implementing smart bidding in the campaigns should be considered. With PPC strategies being altered during the pandemic, it is going to become more difficult to know how search behaviour will change abruptly. Smart Bidding may be a potential avenue as it allows digestion of data that is changing and adjust CPC bids in real time.
The Trend: Have an Open Mind to New Opportunities
It is important to note that overall internet use is still up by around 50%, and the good news is that one can still reach potential customers. The difference is that they are just looking in different places than usual, like YouTube and social media, which is why it is crucial to advertise across multiple networks rather than just Google Search.
Solution 1: Advertise In Multiple Areas
With Google search traffic in a downward trend, it will be important to blend the PPC advertising across multiple networks and platforms. Some effective examples of this are combining Google search with Microsoft Ads, or Google search with Display.
Solution 2: Google Search Partners
Google Search Partners is a network of sites that partner with Google to display PPC ads. By using Google Search Partners, one can not only hit Google search traffic, but also many more search engine sites that are included within this network. This will help expand the reach and branding by not solely relying on Google search traffic.
Solution 3: Remarketing
Although new business might be difficult to bring in at the moment, one can still focus on the past customers and website visitors by nurturing those leads and bringing them back to the website. Serve ads where those users are now spending their time, like YouTube and social media, using display remarketing ads. It’s likely to see more conversions on those return visits.
Digital marketing trends are dynamic and keep on changing but the pandemic has made some fundamental changes to the way digital marketing strategies will be formulated and executed. We at AppleTech have a team of digital marketing ninjas with years of experience in the industry and track record of giving results beyond expectations. Reach out to us today to optimize and adjust your digital marketing strategies.
