Today’s saddest reality is that Covid-19 is spreading rapidly and will continue to do so for weeks, months, or who knows, maybe over a year. The roads are empty, houses are packed with lazy people, and the economy is struggling to survive. Nobody really knows when this agony shall pass away or stop crashing the world’s stock market. This, in fact, has an adverse effect on the businesses and even marketers. If you are working with companies belonging to diverse niche and from around the world, you can easily understand how it is affecting marketing. What does that mean? Before going into that, let’s make it clear that it’s not the time for exploiting the situation. Said that here’s what coronavirus means for digital marketers.
Businesses will continue to struggle for a while
Companies like Apple are still paying their employees while there is not sale and profit. But not every company has such a huge bank balance to fill the pockets of their workforce. Just look at the travel industry, the virus is expected to incur them a hefty loss. Airlines are asking their staff to take unpaid leaves. The ports are also empty and undertaking layoffs to reduce spending unnecessarily. It concludes that even if the number of cases drops, the website traffic and conversion are going to suffer for over a year without a doubt.
Organic traffic is descending
Lockdown has been a commonly used word nowadays. Since the contagious virus is out there, the governments around the world have enforced strict lockdown to prevent further spread. Only those who bestow essential services are allowed to appear on roads. As a result, only industries that are receiving traffic these days include finance, food, healthcare, pharma, and media. And the rest of the industries are facing drops, with a massive one in the travel industry.
Conversions are down for many industries
However, from the conversion rates standpoint, even the finance industry, which is still receiving organic traffic between the ongoing global pandemic, dropped conversions. While on the other hand, conversion rates of media sites have been skyrocketed. Since, most news websites allow only a certain fraction of news for free and people are keen to know as much as they can about COVID-19, politics, and finance, an upheaval can be seen in news sites.
Pay-Per-Click data will not see big shifts
The foremost reason is that despite the perilous outbreak, cost-per-click hasn’t seen any downward shift, even for industries like traveling. Although there has been a dip in the number of people searching for flights and hotels, CPC hasn’t seen a considerate drop. Astoundingly, many businesses saw a big increase in cost per acquisition instead. So, unless you are selling necessities, your cost per conversion will remain high in the coming months, while you can roughly pay the same amount per click.
Opportunity to strike and gain market shares will rise
People are now seen cutting back because the experts are saying that recession is on its way and will hit the economy by trillions of dollars. But a prudent businessman will have a faith in the saying that the best time to double down is when others are not. Simply put, there will also be a decline in competition because many companies are predicted to go bankrupt if the market remains in the same state for a few more months. This also means that having sit on some cash, you will be lucky to buy other companies. And when you will merge it with your existing firm, you will increase your lead count tremendously and recuperate your investment in just a matter of a few months.
Final Thoughts The impact of coronavirus on digital marketing should be vivid by now. As for the marketers, it’s the time when they can double down. Let’s not forget, there is nothing wrong with being greedy when others are fearful.
