A year on year drop of 94% in airline travelers! A crash of epic proportions with trillions of dollars wiped out! Advertising could not even help in the early days of the largest economic downturn since the great depression.
These are some of the sensational headlines used to describe the havoc created by the COVID-19 pandemic to the global economy. The loss of more than half a million (and counting) human lives is unquestionably the greatest tragedy arising out of this pandemic. However, the impact of the “Great lockdown” on business and livelihoods will probably echo even after the public health emergency is over.
Governments and businesses across the world are consistently speaking about the need to adjust to a new normal. There is an unprecedented recalibration of the buying behavior of consumers, the marketing and advertising strategies, and the channels for reaching consumers. According to a report by the influencer marketing hub, 69% of brands expect that they will decrease the ad spend in 2020.
Wherever you look, businesses are having to reassess their overall strategies. Liquidity is now king. Irrespective of the nature of your startup business, ensuring that you have cash liquidity to assist with survival while taking care of the human capital is now of utmost importance. Understanding the link between promotion and business value is critical to both survival and growth. Getting advice on how to value your business is a specialty of advisory firms such as Nash Advisory.
In such a scenario, when there is a move towards more savings in the economy and a need for businesses to maintain liquidity, your advertising decisions need to be smart ones. Every little decision you take concerning advertising has an impact on the long-term health and survival of the business. This short article takes you through why and how you can be smart with your advertising and how you can put effective monitoring and evaluation in place to ensure smarter decisions.
Being Smart With Your Advertising
1. Use Social Media Advertising With Care
The COVID-19 pandemic has ravaged the offline services industry. Offline advertising is much less effective with the reduced people outside houses. The absence of high return events on television like live sports also has had an impact on advertising ROIs.
One advertising channel which can be highly effective, if used in the right way, is social media. But then you have to advertise with care. Ideally, a focus on running campaigns which are socially responsible, while also giving people awareness about your product should be one of the go-to social media strategies. Remember, social currency and giving people a positive feeling is almost a higher priority than just selling your product or service.
2. Find And Embrace The Right Tools
If you are running a small or medium enterprise and have previously outsourced your digital advertising to a marketing agency, then don’t worry. You will be surprised by the number of tools available in the market that allow you to take care of your online marketing content in a very effective manner. You may be looking to create your advertising promos with an online promo maker free or trying to find the best video editor. An online video editing platform, InVideo is powerful, intuitive, and easy to use video editing app.
In such cases, there are several high-quality online tools available that will help you execute at a very high level. Online tools such as InVideo are one of the best to get the content for your digital advertising in place. You only have to put in the time and effort on the building of the right narrative and messaging, and the tools will help you simplify the rest.
Though the global pandemic has crippled the economy, it offers a unique opportunity to businesses like yours to add some vital skills and tools. Knowing such tools and learning such skills can help you become more effective for your digital advertising.
3. Focus On Building A Community
The COVID-19 pandemic is a tragedy that is showing the world the importance of communities, whether they are online or offline. A public health emergency of this scale and scope has required several local communities to work together. As a startup business, you can play a crucial role in strengthening these communities, whether by raising more awareness of initiatives being taken by individuals or businesses or by creating offline or online initiatives of your own to contribute to the fight against COVID-19.
In terms of inspiration on institutions working on community-building measures during the coronavirus outbreak, you can explore the contributions made by football clubs in England, technology experts and organizations in India, or some of the notable NGOs across the world. You will find several examples of initiatives that have strengthened communities and contributed towards the fight against COVID-19.
4. Get The Local SEO Right
If you have a product or service-based business, then, as long as there is restricted movement, your potential market will likely be local or through online distribution via e-commerce platforms. This is the right time for you to focus on the local search engine optimization (SEO) to ensure that the internet’s eyeballs are on you when people type in the relevant search queries.
5. Use The Time To Plan For A Digital Future
Advertising smartly during the coronavirus outbreak is vital. But even more important is the need to develop the human capital within your business to effectively manage and execute digital advertising strategies. This offline ‘pause’ or ‘slowdown’ created by the coronavirus outbreak is an opportunity for you to create a long-term vision and plan for a digital advertising future, and create effective strategies and a pipeline of advertising content that can be used down the line.
It is great if you are doing smart advertising during the coronavirus outbreak for the present, but don’t ignore it for the future as well. The business effects of this outbreak will probably linger, and recovery will be a long-term process, therefore planning advertising strategies for the future may be a good idea.
Effective Monitoring And Evaluation
Finally, no matter which steps you are executing to make your advertising smarter and more effective, do not forget to put in an effective monitoring and evaluation system in place that allows you to measure the efficacy of the strategies that you are applying, learn from the data, and accordingly tweak your advertising. If you understand the importance of smart advertising during the COVID-19 pandemic, and you can execute the right steps, use the right tools, and also put in a good monitoring and evaluation process in place, then your startup business can come out of this outbreak in a decent position to thrive in the future with your advertising.
