Digital Marketing Strategy during the COVID-19 Pandemic
6) Budget
UNDERSTANDING THE MARKET
The case of Textbook Centre partnering with
WHEN IT COMES TO CONTENT DECISIONS,
What messages should you be sending to your customers in a time like this?
Here are some of the themes that you can focus on
CHANNEL DECISIONS
Digitize your sales and distribution. As more people are working from home and are constantly accessing the Internet on mobile phones, this is the ideal time to provide digital services through mobile apps and the website.
If you are selling products online, having a fully functional e-commerce website where your customers can be able to place their orders easily is a big deal. If you don’t have the budget to build an e-commerce site from scratch you can use already existing platforms like Jumia. You should work to ensure you get your products listed on Jumia and similar e-commerce platforms.
The Case Study of Twiga Foods:
We’ve seen Twiga Foods selling fruits and groceries on Jumia the beauty of Jumia is they have established an efficient logistics process that ensures customers get their products at the comfort of their homes.
Your customers are WhatsApp away
As more Kenyans are spending more of their time on smartphones, WhatsApp would be a useful place to showcase your products through the WhatsApp status or WhatsApp for Business. Everyone who has your number will see your contact. Design those banners and share them as far as you can.
TALENT DECISIONS
While companies are down-sizing right left and centre, this could be the best time to keep your most productive employees. It may be a bad decision to hire new employees at the moment unless you are sure that the new hires will have a direct impact on the growth of the business. As a business owner, setting specific deliverables for each employee can help in measuring their output. Measuring employee performance will help you determine who to let go and who to keep. Be frugal.
SKILLS AND TOOLS FOR MARKETERS DURING COVID
These tools can help you manage your customers better
Tools to help you increase conversions on your website
Tools to help you increase the ranking of your website on search engines
Marketing – SEO
Tools to help you manage social media
Marketing – Social
Tools to help you create beautiful graphics for social media and the web
Tools help you create and send beautiful professional-looking emails
Tools to help you know what people are talking about online
Tools to help you simplify the process of managing tasks & resources within a team
Tools for Collaboration and Project Management
Tools to help you manage your accounts and payments better
These tools help your website improve in various ways
Tools for Video conferencing
Tools for Keyword research:
Short Videos
Long-form videos
STRATEGIES / TACTICS
How to set Targeting options on Facebook
The case of Safaricom: Enabled customers to make purchases using bong points?
BUDGET DECISIONS
With reduced profits and cash flows in most businesses due to COVID 19, how should you allocate marketing budgets? The point here is that there are important budget and content decisions that you have to make for your business to be sustainable during the pandemic. The best strategy should be to use your meagre resources as efficiently as possible. Cut costs and defer huge expenses in the short-term. Buying expensive equipment at this time is not a wise move. Use your budget on or Google search Ads or channels such as Facebook and Instagram that are less expensive per CPM compared to Display Ads or LinkedIn Ads which tend to incur huge costs. Create those types of content that are least expensive such as social media banners compared to high-quality videos which can deplete your budget. If you have to do videos, you can use a smartphone to save money. This will help you last the unfavourable business environment until things change.
CONCLUSION
COVID19 will stay with us for a long time. Entrepreneurs will have to quickly adapt to the new reality by adjusting the message and creating solutions that address the needs of the moment. This is a pivoting moment for many businesses. Those who will not be quick to change will be left behind.