A colossal transformation has been witnessed in the world of marketing due to the Covid19 pandemic. The ripple effect of this outbreak has drastically shifted consumer behaviour towards digitalization.
Impact of pandemic!
The impact of the pandemic can be seen now on many industries from travel and tourism to luxurious brands of clothing and cosmetics. Although, some of these businesses have gained momentum while others are still maintaining to balance their brands and consumer experience.
With a sudden fall in revenue and change in consumer behaviour due to the pandemic and multiple lockdowns, companies are trying to become more cost-efficient by cutting all the additional expenses and focusing more on needs rather than requirements.
Digital marketing is the new OG marketing?
Today, businesses are heavily dependent on modern marketing strategies – Digital marketing & Social media marketing, to achieve their goals and make their products and services reach their targeted consumers. Because of the current pandemic situation, people have relied on platforms for their everyday activity. From buying groceries to shopping for clothes, from document verification to business work, people are in search of such digital platforms that can provide the service from the comfort of their home.
Countries are required to ramp up their supply chain and logistics to upgrade their service with the major shifts in consumer behaviour towards the adoption of eCommerce.
Online shopping to online education, it’s all on the internet now
It has been recorded that almost 60% of consumers shifted to online ordering of groceries during the pandemic. Such change in consumer behaviour results from restrictions and national lockdowns and an increased sense of awareness towards avoiding the risk of social contact while purchasing groceries from local shops and malls.
Similarly, falling under the essentials, most of the medical and chemist shops are allowed to operate during lockdown; however, more than 30% of people preferred purchasing medicines online and were satisfied with the service.
Learn new things from the comfort of your house
Along with groceries and medicines, people have used their free time to upgrade their knowledge and skills. There has been a whopping 161% of growth in terms of new registrations on educational platforms, during the pandemic. Not only, school or college students, but working individuals also enrolled themselves on new courses to add new skills to their CV. Also, the coaching centres for school students and higher education are changing their perspective towards taking live sessions and uploading their videos online for better engagement and larger reach.
Presently, the pandemic has entirely changed the customer’s preferences – how the customers perceive, evaluate, and measure brand value. These sudden changes in customer preferences and behaviour are influencing the leaders of digital marketing to think out-of-the-box, forcing them to come up with a better approach, scheme, and solutions that could be planned, measured, and implemented accordingly.
COVID-19 has also changed how businesses look at the customer’s preferences and optimize their strategies according to customer behaviour, making organizations and businesses implement a customer-centric approach compared to the earlier product-centric approach.
With the advancements in technology, businesses are now more indulged in Artificial Intelligence and machine learning, and use these technologies to easily communicate with their customers through Chatbots. These Chatbots can answer customers' preliminary questions, which they face about the products or service, as the shops are now closed, brands can answer consumer queries through such mediums directly. These AI Chatbots can consensually collect customers contact information while interacting with them, hence getting them into the product purchase lifecycle. This contact information can later be used for sending new offers and reminding the customers about their pending purchase from the website.
This too shall pass-yes we adapt to our challenges
Whenever new challenges or setbacks have occurred, we have always found a way – an opportunity in that. With recent catastrophes, businesses have to start reevaluating to understand how to fabricate consumer behaviours. No strategy has ever remained permanent to reap positive ROI; therefore, it is important to analyze new markets, practices, and opportunities to evaluate what will fade away soon and what will make a lasting impact.