How To Improve Your Marketing During & After COVID-19

Photo from Seer Interactive’s event page

Seer Interactive, a digital marketing agency from Philadelphia, hosted a lively webinar this past week led by the founder and VP of Innovation, Wil Reynolds, alongside his long-time friend and colleague, Rand Fishkin, co-founder and CEO of Sparktoro. The webinar, "Tearing Up Your 2020 Plan: How to get through the coming recession", discussed marketing during COVID-19 and how to utilize data to increase sales.

Check out some of our main takeaways from the discussion so you can apply them to your business!

Rand examined how the COVID-19 crisis has impacted and will continue to influence business demand, by breaking the crisis up into three waves: Nothing but COVID, Transition into Online, and the New Normal, Rand discussed what businesses should be thinking about as they navigate COVID-19.

The Three Waves

Once we entered into wave one, "Nothing but COVID," most businesses saw sharp declines in demand (ex: Expedia, SXSW, and Meetup), while some experienced growth (ex: Zoom, Whole Foods, and Patreon). To increase demand during this time, Rand recommends shifting money from lower ROI to higher ROI tactics and to reevaluate your messaging and sales funnels. If your message doesn't match the current climate, change the tone to be more thoughtful.

As we head into wave two, "Transition to Life Online in a Recession," businesses will need to shift their focus to find audiences that are still willing to pay for their services. They can do so by utilizing surveys, interviews, and usage data to learn how COVID-19 impacted their customers. There is an opportunity now to experiment and change with the times.

Wave three, "The New Normal," is an unknown, as we don't know how consumers will respond to the new normal. Rand predicts that this will be a time where post-COVID loss will decrease and demand will increase again. When looking into your marketing strategy, Wil talked about data-driven marketing and advertising and how businesses can utilize paid and organic advertising to drive sales.

The Data Flywheel

Wil suggested companies create a Data Flywheel. The Data Flywheel is a cyclical framework that relies on obtaining more data, which will lead to better decisions. These decisions allow for better products, which ultimately lead to more customers that bring in more data, creating the perfect time to try new ideas.

During a time where a lot of companies are looking to cut spending on advertising, Wil recommends making more purposeful decisions on what ads to place. You can do this by using search data to improve the customer experience. Search data will give you the targeted keywords to use in either paid ads or organically through your site. When using ad words, make sure they make sense for the customer you are trying to reach. If a potential customer comes on your website because they searched a keyword you own and you don't have the relevant content on your site, you lose that customer, and you are wasting money on words that have no ROI.

If you want to make sure that your company is using its data to the fullest potential, and want to see how to make proper budget cuts, you can sign up for a free analysis through Seer Interactive by completing a questionnaire here.