Ways Digital Marketing Strategy Can Help Boost Sales Even During a Crisis

Earlier businesses employed the brick and mortar model to become successful by giving customers a reason to visit their physical stores, such as compelling experiences coupled with live events and unique exclusive in-store services. This approach proved effective in driving more visitors to their shop and boosting the conversions. It typically made clients stay longer, purchase more products, and thus spend more with them.

Then as if the market competitors weren’t enough that the pandemic arrived out of nowhere, becoming the real competitor for brick and mortar business establishments. Companies responded to this crisis with all their power, and while some emerged as winners, some unfortunately failed. And now the businesses have found the correct solution against this pandemic – having a robust digital marketing strategy.

Let’s dive into this!

The World Before This Pandemic Hit

There was a time when all businesses really cared about was having a good location for their shop, showcasing their best selling products in the best possible manner, and doing a bit of offline advertising now and then. Businesses were used to waiting for the customers to visit their local shop and buy their products face to face.

However, afterward, the competition became bold and dynamic. Companies began setting themselves apart from their competitors and capturing new customers by providing exclusive services and special live events like value-added services that offered clients a luxury experience along with entertainment. Offering additional value to customers proved to work wonders for businesses, which made them more likely to come back to shop more.

Businesses vs. Pandemic: Losing the Fight

After decades when businesses finally found the key to differentiate themselves from the competition and get sales success, the pandemic hit the people suddenly and prevented them from visiting the physical stores. Companies soon realized that the magic of offering valuable experiences during face-to-face interactions was lost now. But they knew that providing good experiences still mattered a big deal. Therefore businesses responded to this crisis, but soon many of them understood that their efforts were unproductive. But the question is, why did those businesses lose their first fight against this pandemic?

According to a report, eCommerce spending increased by more than 90% last year. In an attempt to meet this surge in eCommerce adoption, businesses tried to transfer or clone the same in-store experience online, which numerous of them tried to do even before the crisis hit, but they often failed terribly. Wondering why? That’s because, in the digital world, customers don’t usually hope to see the same in-store experience. Hence, companies soon realized that they need new magic now, which was digital marketing and technology innovation for eCommerce businesses.

Digital Marketing vs. Pandemic: Increasing Sales

So now a traditional business needs a new digital marketing strategy to increase their sales during the pandemic. Let’s take a look at the ingredients required for making an eCommerce business successful even amid a pandemic.

1. Convert the Digital Platforms Into an Opportunity

Retailers often complain about the dominating power of online marketplaces such as Amazon and eBay. But instead of considering them a threat, you can actually convert these platforms into an opportunity for your business. Long gone is the time when utilizing a single sales channel was enough. In the modern world, you need to set yourself apart from others. So it’s time to stop waiting and seriously think about becoming an Amazon seller (or any similar marketplaces) to begin cashing in on the platform’s success.

2. Open Your Online Store

If you are a web developer yourself or have hired one already, you can also choose to open your own online store from scratch. Although you can also build an eCommerce website using some online platform alternatively such as Shopify or Wix.

Be sure to support your new online store with digital marketing. You can leverage the power of Google Ads, content marketing, SEO, and much more. You may also want to do a bit of research and find a good digital marketing company that can help make this offline to online shift more comfortable and smoother for you.

3. Take Advantage of Digital Innovation Capabilities

With digital innovation, the online world is continually becoming better every day. It’s time to embrace this change and become a modern business and start investing in the exceptional digital technology capabilities that can help provide compelling online experiences that your target customers are craving. You can consider these digital capabilities:

• Using predictive analytics will help you offer your customers what they truly want
• Use of AI-powered search to enable the visitors to discover the best products
• Employing real-time inventory management to help optimize your overall budget, cut the costs, and increase your revenue
• Making use of interactive functionalities like purchasing guides, personalized virtual shopping, personalization quizzes, etc.
• Utilizing multimedia content to make your online business listing more substantial, appealing, and easier to understand for the potential customers.

4. Utilize Social Commerce

Ever since the popular social networking site Facebook entered our lives, it has totally disordered how people socialize. During the last couple of years, social media channels such as Facebook and Instagram have begun supporting online businesses by adding several new features and tools that companies can utilize. Let’s look at some social commerce tools that can actually help boost your online sales:

• Use social shopping tools and apps to begin selling your products right where your target audience is already present. By doing so, you will be making things simpler for the customers as they won’t have to do much work, and the sales process will be smoother too. Think of it as opening a physical store in a popular shopping mall that receives plenty of foot traffic daily.
• Try and get as many customer reviews and recommendations from peers to grow brand awareness and build trust.
• Take advantage of instant messaging and chatbots to offer prompt customer service and build a more real as well as a personal relationship with customers.
• Utilize online gamification to rebuild that in-store immersive experience that was lost when this pandemic hit, like live videos and contests. You can also host giveaways to build your social media following.

Wrapping It Up

Regardless of your business goals and its type, it is highly recommended to implement the tips discussed in this post and go omnichannel. Most customers today tend to start their online shopping journey on one device and platform (or website) and continue/finish it on another if truth be told. So make sure that your online business stays active on both desktop devices, and smartphones (including tablets and iPads), apps, social media channels, other marketplaces, and literally anywhere the technology will take us (and our customers). The bright side of this pandemic was that it led to businesses reconsidering the way they function. Brands have been successfully harnessing the power of digital marketing to boost their sales even amid this year-long worldwide crisis strategically. The world is changing; it’s time for you to do the same!