COVID-19 pandemic has distorted the businesses all around the world, making business owners rethink and entirely rephrase their marketing strategies. The current circumstances have been fluctuating customer behaviours and actions in a great way. In this perplexing situation, it is necessary that the business owner adapts to the changing aspects of the market and progress in order to persist in Digital Marketing post-COVID-19 world.

Digital platforms have now become a new lease of life and a reliable channel. It has given opportunities to those who like to the think outside the box. A prodigious number of people are working from home and also buying products from the comfort of their home, pure-players are approaching digital marketing which has the great possibility to create an immense impact in the coming time.

The future of the digital world is here. Gradually, with the ever-increasing of the digital medium, people have opted to shop all their daily essentials and amenities online. Starting from foodstuffs to medicines, from garments to electronics, from sanitisers to gym equipment’s the actual requirement to go and visit a store/showroom in person is fading away.

As there is no way to safeguard from the jeopardy of coronavirus infection that is waiting outside, customers are finding ways to get all the necessary services from the comfort of their homes. And, as the result, there is a tremendous amount of change in the behaviour of the customers, they are following a cautious approach while either buying a product or opting for services. Since the pandemic has hit every one of us people who were not aware of the benefits of technology is now more dependent than before. They feel that the advancement of technology was one of the main reason that helped them to survive these challenging times.

During the lockdown, India has seen a considerable increase for online news sites of small and large scale business, finance, health information, online gaming, online free education sites, whereas there were visible drop-in sports, travel, hotel, airlines and transportation sites.

As we progressed into the lockdown situation, the government of India has showcased their trust in digital resources and few companies started to deliver their business online. This helped a lot of small scale businesses to collaborate with high-end companies and sell their products online. This initiation provided great help to the people who were facing scarcity of basic necessities since normal stores were closed the only medium which was operational during the lockdown was the digital channel.

These challenging times have given the opportunity to all the business owners to update themselves and move to digital marketing from traditional marketing. Since plenty of businesses were already planning to go online before the pandemic situation, the previous digital marketing strategies may not be helpful as they have to rephrase their strategy based on Post COVID world. It is important for businesses to have a proactive approach to meet customer needs and requirements. Digital Marketing transformation has forced the business owners to think of the ways by which they can build their brand recognition and brand loyalty in front of the customers and also about how they can provide the users better access to the products and services they will offer. This is the accurate time to make a shift from traditional marketing to digital marketing as digital transformation is the key to survive the post-pandemic situation.

As of now, countries around the world have progressively started lifting the lockdown and the restriction. Customers were totally cooped up inside their homes even after the lockdown and we witnessed that there is a huge demand for goods and services across the globe.

In Covid-19 pandemic businesses were facing the following challenges-

1. Less productive utilization of the digital channel.
2. Shortage of digital literacy. 
3. Facing different customer behaviour.
4. Building durable and alternative business strategies.
5. Logistics and structural challenges to eliminate for e-commerce businesses.

Now to overcome the above challenges and to create an ecological digital model for business, we need to understand the transformed behaviour of the customer and how well we can utilise the facts and figures.

We have noticed in the covid-19 pandemic that people are mostly concentrating only on indispensable things and are dubious about spend on unessential things. Also, they are very well recognising what is an artificial demand and what is an actual requirement.

So now businesses have to take a stand and try to shape their products and services into the category of the indispensable things and if your product or services falls under non-essential category then they need to think about new ground-breaking ways of driving their business online and generating valuable revenues.

Also, the most altered behaviour of customer which was observed was the panic buying that means purchasing out of fear. The examples of panic buying are like unnecessary storing of vital commodities such as groceries, sanitizers, toilet papers, masks and gloves. The purchasing decisions of the customers have now changed completely. Before purchasing anything most numbers of people are questioning themselves that why should they buy it? Businesses have to prepare their brand messages in a way that they can answer this question that has taken place in the mind of the customers and should express why there products or service are essential.

How to perform digital marketing, Post Covid-19-

1. The main focus should be to upsurge the digital literacy. As we are all aware that digital literacy in India is very less, businesses and companies should find out that how can they generate awareness and from where. This will definitely help the businesses to create educative content of their products and services. They should also educate their possible customers about the products and services they offer.
2. Targeting younger audiences would be a great strategy as according to the statistics most numbers of internet users in India are youngsters. So if businesses focus on providing products and services to the younger audiences, offering them great value then it can help businesses to turn their target audiences to their potential customers.
3. Businesses should think of ways to increase the productive utilization of digital media. They can think of generating engaging digital content for their potential customers.
4. Businesses should think of giving better accessibility to the products and services they are offering, Facebook page or website or payment gateways whichever place you want your audiences to land, provide incredible accessibility to them.
5. Focusing on Return on Investment (ROI) is crucial as now businesses have to increase their investment in marketing their products and services online and building their strong presence.

Focusing on improving visibility and generating online traffic is essential. The pandemic situation has forced customers to completely avoid physical stores and turn their attention to e-Commerce platforms. This has unscaled the online presence of retail brands, inclusive of both small scale and large scale brands. Businesses have made Digital marketing strategies to attract a new flurry of online traffic.

Strategies that businesses can follow in the post-COVID world-

• Understand the current buying persona and also review the rising new expectations of the target audience and try including things that are not present in your radar.
• Perform keyword researches and monitor the ongoing trends.
• Take notice of the social platform where your potential customers spend time.
• Do competitor analysis, check what changes they have made in this challenging time.
• Reassess your goals for your digital marketing. Adjust them according to where your small business is now and where you see it going in the post-COVID world.

Digital Marketing ideas and trends that can be considered in Post COVID days:

• Practice Marketing from Home – Arrange campaigns quickly from home, try to collaborate across teams and keep the marketers engaged with applications.
• Engage with your Customers showing Empathy – Pay attention to your customers, use real-time data to understand their current situation and requirements better.
• Personalise Digital Communications with the customers – Accelerate adoption of the digital channel, deliver the right message to the right person at the right time.
• Optimize your Budget Spends – Check digital marketing performances and make real-time decisions to reduce the negative impact.

How to market your business on Digital platforms in post Covid Era:

• Create your online presence by going Digital.
• Built a website, if you don’t have it for your Business.
• Make Educational content for your website.
• Generate content that provides significance to your customers.
• Go for Search Engine Optimization.
• Target local promotions through Google My Business.
• Go global by adding translate and transcribe on your website.
• Pay attention to Social Media Marketing by adding significant posts.
• Run promotional ads for branding perceptively.
• Send bulk emails with personalization and automation.
• Enrol yourselves in WhatsApp, Facebook, LinkedIn groups for relevant discussions.
• Do Comment Marketing.
• Collaborate with different influencers of your niche and perform various activities together.
• Start a Podcast.
• Conduct free webinars.
• Go live on Facebook or Instagram or make short Youtube videos/live streaming for engagements.
• Try getting positive reviews for your business.
• Ask customers for their worthy feedback and suggestions.
• Pay attention to offering amazing customer experience.
• Focus on customer needs and their buying persona.
• Define affordable pricing strategy to target mass audiences.
• Design creative campaigns for brand recognition.

Following these steps, you can definitely climb a ladder of making a strong brand presence online. These steps will ensure your reach to potential customers and also may help in generating profitable revenues.

Wrapping Up!

COVID-19 is wholly solely responsible for the change in customer behaviour and because of this marketing teams had to accelerate digital adoption to hold the pace with the change in customer preferences.

This is constantly leading to an increase in customers demand the quality of digital experiences and also have highlighted businesses focusing on digital mode. As the lockdown eased off, we have witnessed that people are not yet comfortable in stepping out of their homes and they are preferring online shopping. 

In conclusion, now you must have understood that digital marketing post-COVID-19 era has become a worthy full asset to possess. This also implicates the importance of Social Media Marketing which acts as a backbone of your brand recognition. Incorporating social media management tools can help you save a lot of time and efforts. These tools can help you in achieving great efficiency in digital marketing post-Covid-19.

As the lockdown eased off, we have witnessed that people are not yet comfortable in stepping out of their homes and they are preferring online shopping. With the fear of going to physical stores, it has become imperative for sales to leverage digital to get leads and drive high engagement.

Since now the businesses have accepted the importance of digital marketing they are trying to keep a balance between offline and online platforms. They have started focusing on innovative ideas by which a customer feels safe and secure on both platforms. For example, small and large scale businesses have started offering a selection of products through video calls and then remotely delivering the products to customer’s doorstep. Many top brands have started allotting an appointment slot for customers to visit their stores in person and also ensuring that during the visit there is minimal footfall. This shows the power that digital marketing holds in today’s world.  

Lately, businesses have already started making strategies and innovative plans to promote their business through the digital channel. Companies have also started hiring digital marketing experts to form a dedicated team which helps them to build a strong foundation on digital platforms and are also offering high remunerations to them. A lot of small and large scale businesses turned to digital marketing to survive the challenging times that we faced due to the Coronavirus pandemic. During this pandemic distress when people are concerned businesses should come off as a brand that actually cares. This is the chance that businesses have to build their reputation and develop a strong bond with potential customers.