E- Marketing in the Corona virus era

    At the time which all the markets all over the world suffer from the caused disturbances from Covid 19 “Corona virus” governments scramble around the world to slowdown the virus from spreading and still the economic consequences due to this virus are still not clear, you found that small and big companies feel the effects specially tourism and flight companies.

Sponsored ads and corona virus; 

Most likely that global spending on sponsored ads will effect due to Corona virus, according to E-Marketer estimates which has been published lately, it’s expected that global spending on sponsored ads 691.72 billion US dollars and this is more by 07% than last year 2019, and this is much less than they expected before this pandemic spreads as they were expecting 712.04 billion US dollar this year.

E-Marketer estimates was published by 06/03 and it present all year.

 The following is a deep look into E-Marketer estimates for Corona virus effects on the spending on sponsored ads in China the 2nd biggest market in the all world.

• Total global spending: it’s expected that global spending on ads in China will be 113.70 billion USD in 2020 and this lower than the previous estimates which was 121.13 billion USD. 
• Growth in total spending on sponsored ads: due to the reduction of spending via all media channels including digital, the rate of estimate spending on sponsored ads got lower than the first estimates from 10.5% to 8.4%.
• Growth of spending on sponsored ads: it was expected that spending on sponsored ads will grow by 13% in 2020 comparing to 15.2% last year,

 digital media consumption is increasing in china where most of consumers spends more time at home, but some of the advertisers withdraw their expenses due to their fear of shocks and supply and shipping problems which may prevent them from getting products to the consumer. 

In other countries, the effect of Corona virus is still less clear, here is some of the possible consequences which can weaken the spending on ads all over the world;

• Companies with supply lines might depends on China for reducing their ads expenses as a way to mitigate economic losses, indeed there is clues refer to downsizing spending on Amazon ads and this can spread to other digital platforms if problems continued.
•  Spending on ads “Out of home” could witness negative effect because of social separation, isolation and sanitary measures, where most of the people in countries with big popularity avoid being in public places which effects at the end on advertising companies’ intentions to put ads in this places.

 Is it logic creating funded campaigns if consumers where not booking travel trips? or a hotel room? or a product purchased from a store?

The crisis forced all companies to reevaluate their financial aspects, especially B2C companies to reassess their marketing strategy, whether it`s doing paid advertising campaigns on social media platforms or they were using paid search ads provided by google.

So I can say it is important for brands to keep their minds in public`s minds, but marketers should be careful about brand safety, especially marketers in the field of tourism and travel, and not to stop ads altogether, but to ensure that they are placed in an appropriate manner and that the areas dealing with the spread of disease are not promoted. 

Who is benefiting from Corona virus?

   The spread of corona Virus likely to boost and increase digital media consumption in all areas as people spend more time at home.

• Social networks can be the most beneficiaries, as people resort to these platforms to communicate with friends and family, or to follow news content, in addition to encouraging more virtual conversations between family and friends the rapid nature of the change of the Corona virus can translate into more users who follow news updates on social media platforms. Despite concerns they may have about the ability of technology companies to act as a reliable source of information, more than half (55%) of American adults got news from social media platforms in 2019, up from 47% from 2018, according to Pew research center, and in November 2019 E-Marketer estimated that American adults ages 18 and older will spend 54.56 minutes per day on social media platforms in 2020.

• Subscription based video on demand “SVOD” might benefit from the same as people sitting in quarantine and homes seek more entertainment or news content, such as Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon prime video, this will lead to increase in subscribers.
• Project and meeting manager applications: companies seek to fully transform their business from home, as team management applications and project like Slack، Trello، Basecamp، Zoho Projects, and video or audio meeting programs such as ClickMeeting ، BlueJeans، Zoom.

What is the benefit of E-Marketing at the present time?

 The main advantage of e-marketing in addition to the fact that it does not require face-to-face communication is that it is measurable.

 Marketers can easily get the value of the return on investment spending “ROI” and activities that attract the most potential customers at any cost.

 Assuming that many marketers will have some extra time especially those who will have to work from home, they recommended using this time to review their marketing strategy and reformulate their marketing messages.

Why should you review your marketing strategy?

 Marketing professionals often complain that they don’t have time update their websites due to their overwork, Well, this is the perfect time to re-visit the company website and re-arrange it to make sure your company is presented better, and prepare an easy and smooth in-site purchase path to raise conversion rates. It is also a good time to reset your marketing campaign goals and take a deep look at the performance of past marketing activities you will surely find that there is a real need to update many marketing materials that have been produced in the past.

 This is a great opportunity to improve the following features of your brand marketing strategy:

1.   Website content: ensure that it contains effective marketing messages with the correct call of purchasing decision.
2. Search engine optimization: check and optimize organic search ranking for your current site for search engines to improve the quality and number of traffic that comes from natural search.
3. Content marketing: use this opportunity to generate ideas for new posts and articles for social media platforms and blogs and start writing the next newsletter for your clients.
4. Marketing materials: to think about topics that you can post on social media platforms to your clients and followers by preparing presentations, guides and other marketing materials.
5. Increase the rate of interaction on social media platforms: develop strategies for how to improve interactivity on platforms by posting videos, writing new cases studies, research, articles and increase the number of webinars.

 Boosting your focus on digital marketing will enable you to maintain a state of nature in these days and give you a competitive advantage over competitors who are late in response.

 I hope this crisis ends soon but no matter how long it takes to boost your marketing efforts it will reduce your risks and improve your overall condition.