As our nation looks towards reopening, reentry, and recovery in the wake of COVID-19, many businesses grapple with a glaring concern: how to reconnect and reach customers, post-pandemic.
Our solution? A sound Digital Marketing strategy operating around the 4 C’s: Channels, Communication, Content, and Consistency.
A Closer Look
At its core, digital marketing allows your business to connect with consumers where they are: online, driving actionable results. Connecting comes in many forms, but the desired outcome remains: establish brand awareness, increase online traffic, generate leads, and produce sales.
While the pandemic has fundamentally changed the way businesses operate, digital marketing may be one of the most valuable solutions to offset such shifts. From unprecedented barriers on face-to-face business, strained foot traffic, and general public concern – businesses hoping to navigate a daunting new normal are seeking new strategies to successfully connect with customers, online.
The Statistics
Pre-pandemic, the average American consumer relied heavily on online resources like search engines and social media channels to locate local businesses, assess offerings, and make purchasing decisions.
Search
A staggering 93% of online experiences begin with a search engine, and 61% of internet users report researching a product or business online before making a purchase.
Social
With over 40% of the world’s population on social media, 87% of those online report that a brand’s social presence plays a crucial role in their buying journey.
After nearly 100 days of significant lockdown, usage of such platforms has only increased and is expected to continue as consumers look to re-engage and resume some sense of normalcy.
Businesses must adapt to the greater digital demand with a strong online presence and sound marketing strategy, or risk missing out on crucial conversations, connections, and conversion.
The Four C’s
As you prioritize powering up your online presence, consider the crucial four C’s of a sound digital marketing strategy to ensure maximum impact.
1. Channels
A strong online presence requires consistent, clear, and value-rich activity across a myriad of channels. While these platforms act as an extension of your businesses’ customer service, it’s imperative to explore which channel suits your business best. Take a closer look at three powerful options.
Does your business have a Facebook Page? Consider this: Facebook remains the leading social platform, with 2.60 billion monthly active users. With 80 million small businesses connecting with customers via Facebook Pages and ads, it’s imperative that your business be part of the conversation.
A dedicated Facebook Business Page can help develop your digital storefront, establish brand awareness, and foster customer connection by providing a clear space for value-rich posts, videos, updates, and ads.
In light of COVID-19, Facebook Page technology provides an easy and effective way to communicate key information to concerned customers such as services, hours, products, and location. Businesses can even generate and share reviews through Facebook Pages, ensuring your business capitalizes on positive past experiences.
When it comes to shaping a digital marketing strategy, better understanding your customers is key: especially when it comes to their online activity and behavior. Facebook Page Insights is a free tool that allows you to do just that, simplifying strategic shifts to your content, pacing, and advertising.
Should your customers need assistance, native chat offerings provide an added opportunity to quickly communicate – acting as an extension of your customer service.
In a post-pandemic world, Facebook Business Pages allow you to further humanize your company, communicate with customers, and stay top of mind – making this channel a must for your digital marketing efforts.
It’s safe to say this visual-based platform is a powerhouse to leverage, with 1 billion monthly active users. An impressive 80% of users report a brand or business’ Instagram presence helped them decide whether to buy a product or service. Those statistics are hard to ignore, making Instagram a definite contender for your digital efforts.
With an algorithm that favors high-quality content (read: images and videos) and audience engagement, Instagram is an ideal space to reach your customers at every stage of the buying journey post-COVID.
Your business’ Instagram can contain key information within your bio, a link to your website or desired content, and communication features like Direct Messaging and Email – crucial as customers often consider social media channels direct links to a brand itself.
Instagram is used as a visual storytelling platform: capture your audience’s attention with user-generated content, reviews, videos, updates, LIVES, and Instagram stories. Your Instagram content can promote discovery through targeted ads or use of relevant hashtags, encourage decision making with clear updates or quality visuals, even foster brand awareness with ample opportunity to show personality, value, and commitment to your customer.
Google Ads
While not a true social media platform, Google Ads is a crucial component of most digital marketing efforts.
Google Ads is Google’s online advertising program, allowing businesses to create advertisements that reach their target audience.
When it comes to online advertising, Google Ads is one of the most competitive tools for driving purchases, building brand awareness, and increasing website traffic. In fact, such ads increase brand awareness by 80%.
Now is the perfect time to start capitalizing on the sky-high number of searches, by advertising to customers as they look for products and services like yours.
With sister programs like Google Analytics and Google AdSense, you can create effective campaigns, monitor success, and ultimately, drive measurable results.
While learning to harness the full power of such platforms can be daunting, we’re here to help. With unparalleled expertise and unique packages, like our BrandUltra package, BrandRep can help maximize your digital marketing efforts: from comprehensive website development, Google optimization, and social media management services.
2. Communication
Communication is key, especially as our world steps out into such uncertainty. From email campaigns to social media content, strategically crafted communication reconnects your business and customers.
While your customers and target audience search for services like yours, quality digital communication can ensure they are well aware of your offerings and informed enough to make a buying decision.
Take a closer look at the concerns and crucial information your customers might be considering before interacting with a business. Examples include: “What does it look like to shop here, now?” or “How committed is this business to customer health and safety?” Shifted hours, increased cleaning methods, close following of CDC guidelines may all be applicable. If the way your customers reach, enjoy or purchase your product/service has changed through COVID-19, be sure you’re clearly communicating as such.
By interacting with your customers through quality communication, you aren’t just staying top of mind: you’re reminding customers of the value you provide, the expertise you offer, and the ever-present commitment to their satisfaction…and safety.
3. Content
You’ve heard the phrase “content is king”, but that can be misleading. While digital marketing content comes in many forms – social media posts, videos, blogs, and beyond – there isn’t one true form of content that reigns supreme. Rather, a variety of ways to reach your target audience in an intriguing and engaging way.
Blog Posts
Blog posts provide your business with the opportunity to expand on expertise, showcase personality, provide clear value…and strengthen your SEO. Crafting high-quality blog posts work to establish your digital presence, inform audiences of your expertise, and even make your business more easily discovered online.
As your team shapes blog posts, consider: “what value am I providing?” A solution, an update, an engaging reflection of your mission and values?
With consistent blog content and strong call-to-action, you can drive greater traffic to your site and further establish your business as an industry leader.
Social Media Posts
Your target audience is on social media, and more than likely, it’s where they’d like to learn more about you. Use channels such as Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook to carry your customers through their decision-making journey – showcasing brand value, mission, personality, tone, commitment, culture, offerings, updates, and more.
The pandemic saw a steep increase in screen time and social media consumption, deepening users’ immersion. While the use of digital platforms during shutdowns was expected, usage is estimated to continue climbing post-COVID as our world looks to navigate a new normal.
Video
Did you know that it’s estimated video viewing will account for 82% of all internet traffic by 2022? That calls for prioritizing the creation of video content for your business.
Video can be some of the most effective content and while such efforts may sound daunting, they prove fruitful. In fact, studies show that viewers retain 95% of a brand’s message when they watch it in video format, compared to the 10% they retain when reading it.
Consider creating how-to videos, videos that highlight testimonials, behind the scenes, or even personable video updates on your team. You can host such content across most digital marketing platforms and efforts.
Knowing your customers
While all methods of content can prove effective, it’s important to consider what type of content best represents your services or product. Ultimately, deciding to put effort behind blogs or videos comes down to customer insights. Knowing the types of content your customers regularly consume and respond to will help you effectively capture their attention and communicate your ability to satisfy their evolving needs.
Understanding the digital consumption patterns of your customers is possible with analytics and reporting. We understand that such an undertaking can seem daunting, should you need assistance, don’t hesitate to reach out to a BrandRep expert.
4. Consistency
Pacing, or a commitment to regular posting and outreach, is a key pillar to successful digital marketing. Ultimately, a balance of content variety and posting schedule is desired. An onslaught of the content may seem overwhelming to customers, whereas minimal updates may allow for competitors to rise above.
Your audience will begin to expect regular updates and look towards content consumption. Further still, most social media platforms prioritize such consistency in order to expand organic reach – meaning, more high quality, engaging content that is posted may equal more opportunity for your content to be seen. Play around with content variety and posting consistency to strike such balance.
Consistently posting new content to your digital platforms and interacting with customers within each platform will help you sustain the growth of your company beyond the third and fourth phases of COVID recovery.
Customers who experience consistent interaction with your company now will be more confident in your ability to accommodate their needs in the future. Consider a realistic pace your business can commit to when it comes to your email campaigns and social media presence.
Be sure to keep in mind that the consistent goals you set for your business now may not be sustainable once we enter the final stages of economic reopening. While it is reasonable to adjust in the future, try shaping a strategy that feels manageable for your team. Remember, content should be engaging and value-rich, so quality truly takes precedence over quantity.
Moving Forward
At first glance, digital marketing may seem like an exhaustive task. We can assure you that by prioritizing the four C’s, you can approach digital marketing effectively.
Ultimately, successful digital marketing isn’t an emergency fill-in, but rather, a keystone effort that may make your business far more resilient – uncertainty and all.
Through a strong digital presence, you aren’t just highlighting crucial updates, sparking conversation, fostering brand loyalty, establishing persona, driving actionable results, or even reaching your audience where they spend the most significant amount of time…you’re giving them the confidence they need to step out into a new world, and into your business.
As our nation looks towards reopening, reentry, and recovery in the wake of COVID-19, many businesses grapple with a glaring concern: how to reconnect and reach customers, post-pandemic.
