How COVID-19 Affected Marketing

3 min read

by John Peterson

Coronavirus has had a huge impact on the world’s economy, especially on marketer-run small businesses. The new cases of coronavirus are scaring people away from the workplace and thus, turning down customers. No one really knows how much our *supposedly* economic progress will continue to drop and thus, impact marketers and others working in business-related fields. If you remember the 2008 market crash, you remember how much the failure of the stock market has impacted small businesses of any kind and thus, marketers along with it.

Thinking about solutions after recognising the issue at hand is, however, the real cure.

First, let’s talk about what you should NOT do

I see marketers all around the world exploiting Coronavirus in ways unimaginable before. This is simply unacceptable. Making money by preventing others from accessing basic supplies such as toilet paper or hand sanitiser is absolutely hypocritical.

I am sure you would not like that happening to you, would you? Marketing is about making profits, but IT IS NOT about making profits by taking away other people’s access to basic supplies. This does not mean being an entrepreneur but a rather insensitive person. Raising profits this way will not bring you any benefits in the long run because it is wrong.

I currently write my essay on this specific issue (you can find it on the website), so check out my content further if you are interested.

Now that we got that out of the way, let’s see how Coronavirus is affecting business all over the world and how we, as smart entrepreneurs, can change that.

We must accept that businesses are struggling. Look at the evidence!

In the Republic of China alone, retail sale profits have gone down 20% and the unemployment rate is higher than ever. Companies everywhere in the world are reducing their working hours or even shut down stores to prevent the spread of the virus.

Even if this is temporary, for small businesses this could lead to a financial death. Most small businesses run on daily profits and barely make monthly payments to banks, renters, or loan companies; they would not be able to survive such an economic crisis.

The travel industry is also suffering greatly. We have evidence that they have lost at least 800 billion dollars by reducing traveling plans by now *and they will lose some more*.

The pandemic will cost the world serious money and WILL produce an economic crisis however we look at it. Marketers working in tourism *and not only* might therefore lose their jobs in the future.

We can expect that possibility becoming a truth any day. But accepting facts as facts is the first step into finding a suitable solution for this imminent problem. If we do not know that we have a problem, we will never be able to fix it.

Organic traffic is going down, and down, and… down

From a global perspective, organic traffic is slowly plummeting. Businesses such as local restaurants and breweries, for example, do not have huge budgets, and therefore, cannot collect organic traffic anymore.

Most small industries that are being tracked on the Neil Patel website are dropping significantly *this speaking from a SEO perspective*. The “good” news is that news is one of the few industries that skyrocketed in the last months, along with financial services, so marketers working in this field should be quite fine.

For other industries though, such as travel, real estate, transportation, or construction *and many others*, profits are going down to the point of seriously sinking.

Conversions are also going down, and down, and…you know where I’m going with this

Since media has been so popular among consumers lately, it has been charging people hugely to allow them to read information on their websites.

For example, there is no way you could read Washington Post articles unlimited without purchasing a monthly or annual pass. You must subscribe to the website’s services in order to access political and economic information on Corona.

Thus, these websites see a huge conversion lift, and marketing in these sectors seem to go better than ever.

Pay per click

No pay per click industry has shifted too much during coronavirus *except media*, so expect a lack of changes in this sector. For example, according to the same source mentioned earlier, the travel industry has seen a big drop in people searching for flights and other travel-related acquisitions without any changes seen in PPCs. However, acquisition costs have increased. If you are paying the same amount for PPCs, you might want to expect an increase in conversion rates.

Conclusion

Marketing has changed greatly during coronavirus but that does not mean we should take advantage of it. Being greedy and thus taking away people’s basic rights to access essential resources will bring nothing but more debt to others and thus, destroy the economy for the long run. Be sure to be fair and steady when making marketing decisions.

About author

John Peterson is a journalist with 4 years’ experience, currently working as a college paper writer. He is a professional mini-tennis player and he has written a novel “His heart”. You can find him on Facebook.