The “New Normal.”
As businesses across the country in early March and April shifted their attention to online product marketing and remote forms of communication, the website has become the new storefront, now more than ever before. And as businesses scramble to adapt their digital marketing strategies, many are being left behind or becoming quickly outpaced by competition.
To compete in the new COVID online marketplace, businesses have found the need to pivot accordingly by rethinking how to engage with customers, how to market to niche demographics, and how to keep existing customers satisfied with new challenges in an ever-shifting and tumultuous landscape.
Customers are at home and spending more time online:
Online shopping is now at 40% for U.S. adults
E-commerce sales nearly doubled in May
The average user might be working from home, browsing online more frequently, and spending a large portion of their day struggling through remote learning with their children. By targeting your niche audience and spending time analyzing your demographic using real time data, you can better market your product with promos, video marketing, and customized virtual experiences.
Rethinking the classic business model, how to engage with customers remotely
embracing e-commerce
Some businesses are doing this a lot better than others. Amazon, has been uniquely primed (if you pardon the pun) for online customer demand by focusing foremost on the ease and accessibility of fast, convenient shopping and reordering of products through a personalized mobile app, voice search, and website user experience and in turn doubled their profits during COVID. However, that increase demand did not come without struggles early on at the start of the COVID shutdown. Supply shortages of 3rd party products (remember Purell and price-gouging from 3rd parties?) and an increased demand on the delivery-side caused longer wait times for basic products for Prime customers accustomed to the 2-day or same-day delivery.
Saks Fifth Avenue, with the help of Salesfloor, has personalized online shopping experiences for customers with individualized webpage “boutiques” to suggest curated merchandise to customers as well as interact with associates through chat, social media, 24/7. “We finally have the ability to bring the high-touch Saks experience and store environment online,” says President Marc Metrick. Enabling live chat for ecommerce is one of the most popular features. It “delivers speed, transparency, and expertise—things that customers value most.”
But businesses that aren’t Amazon or Saks Fifth Avenue, have had to pivot more drastically – adopting new, flexible shopping models in a limited digital space. Smaller business looking to add e-commerce to their website, have found help with Shopify and Etsy as platforms to sell online products and accepting PayPal for payments. Stores that relied on in-person shopping, have expanded into social distancing measures with curb-side pickup or deliveries, when they didn’t offer them before. Google Business has expanded its listings capabilities, by offering COVID-related information fields for businesses and to help small businesses generate advertising during April, they began offering free product listings on Google Shopping through their Merchant Center.
Gary’s Wine & Marketplace stores had a mobile app before COVID, but with only 2,000 users, they wondered if it was even worth the cost. But in April everything changed. With shutdowns, those 2,000 users quickly turned into 15,000 in under a month. “[Businesses now] that thrive, and that will continue to thrive, are those that embraced that technology,” Ben Witten, vice president at Trademark, said during a COVID-19 impact webinar hosted by location analytics company Placer.ai.
digitalization of products
And it’s not just the online platforms that are adapting to sell the product, in some cases it’s the products themselves. Perhaps the most memorable example of this was when alcohol companies and distillers started producing hand sanitizer to address increased demand and a limited supply. Sales for hand sanitizer sales increased almost 314% in the week ending February 29th.
In-person events have shifted to virtual events, and to make profits have started marketing curated, exclusive content virtually to the customer.
Sur La Table had to close down during COVID, and their cooking classes were canceled. They soon “noticed that their audience was taking in a lot more long-form content (cooking videos, recipes, and other meal planning and prep content), especially on Instagram and YouTube,” so Sur La Table quickly shifted their focus, “ultimately, the brand took its excellent in-store experience and brought it online” with cooking classes to stream.
“The fitness industry has shifted to holding virtual classes on streaming services, both live and pre-recorded. Almost every school, from elementary schools through graduate programs, have shifted to online courses. Large-scale conferences and events are being held virtually. The NYSE has moved entirely to online trading.” Source.
Part Two continues to explore the impact of COVID with Digital Marketing and Content Marketing.