Digital Marketing and Covid-19: A Look Back at the Importance of Digital Marketing in 2020
2020 has been a different year than we all imagined. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, we struggled on a personal and a national level, and we witnessed changes to our lives and our culture that we never would have imagined in 2019. In 2019, who would have ever thought that masks would be the new hit accessory? Or that schools would be closed for months at a time? Who had ever heard of Zoom? Or social distancing? No industry escaped change. In the world of digital marketing, Covid-19 brought changes, too.
The World Goes Digital
One of the major changes to daily life came in the form of remote…everything. Remote learning, remote working, remote doctor visits, remote shopping. Digital marketing, therefore, became important in an entirely new way than it had before. Previously, digital marketing was a way for businesses to join the online community and get more visibility, hopefully reaching more clients. In 2020, digital marketing wasn’t just something nice to have, a little boost to your business, if you will. It became essential. It became THE way to reach the now-nearly-entirely-remote world. And it became the way for businesses to open up and show people that they were in the Covid-19 trenches too, that they understood what everyone was going through, and that they cared.
Covid-19 Digital Marketing: A Shared Pain Point
A critical method to attracting new clients is to appeal to them on a personal level. What are their wants? Their needs? Their “pain points,” to use an industry term? In 2020, aside from the usual wants and needs, everyone shared one unique pain point–the pandemic. For many, the pandemic meant quarantine. Isolation. Shopping from home. Fear of going out. Terror at getting sick. Trepidation at losing a job. With so many suffering physical, emotional, and financial struggles due to the unrelenting virus, we were all looking for something in common: understanding. Words and images from a local business are a powerful way to show that we truly are all in this together, and that a company is showing compassion for both its clients and its employees.
Making Emotional Connections
Emotion plays an important role in a person’s decision to make a purchase or sign up for a service. In fact, according to advertising research, emotions have a stronger influence on consumer behavior than any other type of judgement point, such as price or even necessity. Digital marketing during Covid-19 is a key way to connect with potential consumers and clients on an emotional level, either by making them laugh, by inspiring them, by making them feel understood, or all three–especially when it comes to relating to pandemic issues. We are in the unique position of having a shared intense experience with the world, and certainly with our local community. Through social postings, videos, web content, emails, and ads, companies have the opportunity to show not only that they empathize and care, but what specifically they are doing to make life easier and safer for their staff and clients.
Digital Marketing in a Post-Pandemic World
As we enter 2021 and the era of the Covid-19 vaccine, we may yet see more changes to the digital marketing industry. People are re-entering the world, but remote life to some degree is here to stay for many, including working from home, online shopping, telehealth visits, and more. The internet is becoming even more robust and the interactions between companies and their clients are richer and more dynamic than ever before. As life moves forward and we hopefully put Covid-19 behind us, digital marketing has a continued opportunity to adapt to and even change the way consumers interact with companies online. We at Thump Local are looking forward to taking an active part in shaping the digital marketing future and we can’t wait to see what creative opportunities 2021 brings to enhance the connection between companies and consumers in our ever-changing world.