How to adapt your company’s digital marketing strategy during COVID-19

Like so many of you, the impact of COVID-19 might seem daunting as businesses around the world are being affected by this pandemic. In the home industry, brands are experiencing cancelled or postponed events that provide the face-to-face opportunity to make new connections and meet with potential partners to grow their businesses. Additionally, companies that sell in-stores or through showrooms may be feeling a direct hit to sales at physical locations. Unexpected times like this leave teams feeling lost as to what the next best steps are for the company to sustain and weather the storm.

Through these challenges, it is essential for your business to become adaptable. Reevaluating your business strategies and focusing on those activities that can grow your business in spite of the economic status.

As an influencer marketing agency, we help brands navigate limitations and strengthen their digital marketing efforts to build consumer awareness, ultimately driving sales. We’re sharing ways to help you achieve your 2020 goals and how your team can leverage digital to strengthen your brand.

Utilize digital marketing to reach your customer directly:

Our entire way of life has been shifted online. As stores and showrooms are forced to temporarily close, customers will be shifting to digital and particularly mobile experiences to carry out basic activities and stay connected with the world. Already, nearly half of consumers shop more on mobile than in-store. This presents an interesting opportunity for brands to connect and market to consumers directly. Brands whose online presence has not been a top priority should immediately place resources toward digital initiatives such as social media, influencer marketing, digital advertising and SEO strategies.

Leverage social media and digital advertising:

Your company’s social-media presence consists of loyal customers that you can leverage to promote key messaging on where to purchase and discounts you are offering to boost sales. As social media allows you to engage with your audience directly, take this opportunity to be more proactive with your communication. Instead of waiting for someone to comment on your post or feed, develop an outreach strategy to engage with your target customer. Clearly, the larger your social media audience the better, but growing your own following can be cumbersome. Influencers are a great way to draw organic traffic to your social channels while also helping your profile get discovered more easily. In addition, concentrating on the social media platforms where your target customer is most active and ensuring you are taking advantage of social media innovations like in-app checkout is key.

In 2019, digital advertising spending surpassed traditional advertising for the first time. Digital advertising allows smaller companies to compete in the online space while providing the insights needed to shift in this fast paced landscape. And, it’s no longer just a Millennial or Gen Z fad. According to Forbes, the percentage of people aged 65 and older using at least one social media site grew from 7% in 2010 to 40% in 2019.

Incorporate influencer marketing to scale your digital efforts:

While paid ads and branded content strategies are an important part of reaching consumers, influencer marketing can offer brands more effective results. According to Influencer Marketing Hub, companies who incorporate influencer marketing receive 11 times higher return on their investment as opposed to other forms of digital marketing. Additionally, only 15% of consumers trust content created and shared by companies (Forrester), however, 88% say they find online reviews as trustworthy as personal recommendations. Influencer marketing allows you to create a personal, authentic influence around your products that is much more effective than ads or company content. Influencer marketing also has the power to greatly improve brand recognition and sway consumer purchasing decisions, even on high ticket items. Influencer marketing allows you to reach your target customers “instantly” by tapping into already-established and trusted influencer networks. Influencers are continuously cultivating their highly engaged audience base and you have the opportunity to leverage these potential consumers by working with them to showcase your brand and product assortment. Oftentimes, brands boost influencer posts and use the content and image assets created by the influencers for use in their own ads.

Develop organic content and improve SEO:

With the influx of online information provided to us on a daily basis, it’s harder and harder for brands to stand out. Your company’s ultimate goal is to have a high Google ranking so consumers can find your company and products when searching organically online. In order to accomplish this, your marketing team needs to be creating content that uses the keywords you have established. Organic content can be blogs your team creates, digital press features linked on your site and influencer sponsored blogs that link back to your site. By cross-promoting content, you can build powerful backlinks to drive long-term, targeted traffic to boost your search rank overtime. The more backlinks, the higher your search rank. Google also considers a strong social following as an indicator of authority, and will reward you SEO-wise. Social media marketing has become a great source of traffic for company websites as well as converting customers. Pinterest and Facebook are easiest to share links on while Instagram Story “swipe-up” links are a very quick, relevant opportunity to drive direct traffic to a specific landing page from content.

Drive sales and purchasing decisions with your own eCommerce platform:

We’ve seen the launch and success of direct-to-consumer brands over the past few years and the trend only seems to be on the rise. An article by Bynder reported that 40% of internet users predict direct-to-consumer brands to make up 40% of their total purchases within the next five years. Companies like Warby Parker, Glossier, Away and Casper, who all surpassed a $1 billion valuation in a short period of time, have been able to grow quickly by avoiding expensive traditional media buys and “middle men” such as retailers, manufacturers and distributors. Direct-to-consumer startups have leveraged the ability to innovate fast, create convenience for their customers, provide a personalized shopping experience and tell a big brand story. These are the underlying qualities buyers today are seeking. Now we know Incorporating your own eCommerce platform would take more resources to implement than the other recommended digital strategies mentioned in this article, especially if you are starting out from square one. However, platforms like Shopify or WooCommerce are making it easier for companies to run successful eCommerce businesses.

Onward and upward:

The home industry and the people behind it are resilient. Creativity and innovation is at our core, which is why we will adapt and find new strategies that will help us avoid losing the momentum we’ve all worked so hard to achieve.

Contact Us to hear what Embello is doing to help our clients launch product introductions, reach new and existing buyers, and leverage influencer marketing to scale their digital efforts. We are also providing brands a free digital audit through April 1st to help you focus on the marketing activities that matter most.