By now, coronavirus COVID – 19 needs no introduction. 219,375 confirmed cases with around 8,970 deaths and the numbers are increasing at an alarming rate!
The sad truth is that it is spreading quickly and will continue to spread for a while.
While many things are uncertain, as sadly many lives, and we don’t have a proper answer on how everything will turn up.
According to Google, “since the first week of February, search interest in coronavirus increased by +260% globally.”
There has also been a surge in traffic for related products and related topics to the pandemic.
Measures taken by Google and Facebook
Google and Facebook have removed any content on their pages, including YouTube to prevent the coronavirus in place of seeking medical treatment, and is also blocking all ads capitalizing on the coronavirus.
Facebook is blocking anyone running ads to exploit such a sensitive situation.
How will this affect marketers?
Well, as long as you are not trying to sell ad copy claiming to cure, prevent or treat the condition, this won’t affect you at all.
However, there are few things as a marketer you should not be doing at this time.
So while researching for the blog, we have been businesses buying toilet papers, hand sanitizers, masks, baby wipes and what not in bulk, and then selling them for 10-50x the price.
Please do not exploit the situation. Not only it is ethically demeaning, but it also isn’t going to last for long.
How organic traffic is responding to COVID-19?
Traffic and conversions most of the industries are seeing a huge drop in the market.
Certain industries like in the chart have seen a rise in sectors like news, media, healthcare, etc.
But if you are in the travel industry, then there is a huge drop in the market.
The virus is expected to lose them 820 billion dollars. Virgin Atlantic just asked their staff to take an 8-week unpaid leave.
The U.S. currently has banned travel to high-risk countries, and other nations have instituted similar bans on non-essential travel. However, search for “cheap flights right now” has grown by 90% over the last 30 days, and “cheap flights due to coronavirus” has increased by 2,450%.
What is the condition of businesses all over the world?
In China, retails shops have seen a drop of 20.5% and the unemployment rate has jumped to 6.2 % in February.
Major companies like Apple, Facebook have stopped which means, less income and less profit.
It is estimated that COVID-19 will cost the global economy around 2.7 trillion dollars.
The way the market is going down, many of them will struggle to pay off the debts, exploded to $75 trillion.
How will businesses combat coronavirus through business strategies?
When billionaires like Carl Ichan saying that the market has more room to go down and we should expect the sell-off has longer to go. Already the first round of layoffs has started, and it is estimated to only go down from there.
Lesser competition
It may seem very insensitive to say, but whenever there is a recession period coming up, it is best to buy other companies.
Neil Patel bought the KISSmetrics website from $500,000, they had over 1,260,681 million unique visitors a month. He then skillfully merged the company to NeilPatel.com site, increasing its lead up to 19%!
Data says that whenever the market goes down by 20% or more it takes around 536 days to recover from the situation. And to be honest, with the way things are right now, it is really difficult to determine where the bottom would be.
Mini-auditing for your contents
If you haven’t kept an inventory for your content assets, we would prefer you to get started on that.
A fully comprehended audit will take a huge amount of time and expertise, but you can perform a mini-auditing to keep a tab of everything.
The main aim is to repurpose your already existing content.
Carefully evaluate with a critical eye:
- Which ones get the most traffic on-site?
- Which content can be re-purposeful for other channels?
- Which content got the maximum amount of social media shares or engagement?
Communicate the changes
Are you operating on special hours?
Have you been taking precautions against COVID-19?
Update everything on your GMB profile page.
Update your new policies, share posts, offers, and contact information on the Google page in case people are trying to reach you.
Consider a different approach
Considering to reach your customers during a pandemic might depend on the type of your business. However, letting the relationship totally drop off is not a good idea.
Do not advertise your brand with tacky headlines.
A lot of changes might sound stressful but marketers can have a clear, concise choice of accurate messaging to your customers.
You can try for various guides on the pandemic, a few safety measures, helpline numbers to try and keep the relationship intact.
Lastly, we can only hope that this disaster passes soon with a minimal impact on our lives.
Try not to attend events or conferences in this situation.
As for the marketers remember to keep calm and do what Warren Buffett does… be greedy when other people are fearful!
Stay safe, stay healthy and be aware.
Have you seen any other effects of coronavirus on digital marketing? Let us know below!
And for more information on coronavirus read here!
Here are some of the data for the latest information: Click Here
