It’s been easy to focus on the challenges that businesses have faced this year as a result of the coronavirus. Along with the bad, however, there is always good if you look closely enough for it.
What positives have we seen during the time of COVID-19 for businesses and consumers? Let’s take a look at some of the flowers that have bloomed through the cracks in the pandemic pavement.Â
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Evolution of Services Has Been Fast Tracked
Many businesses have had to adapt how they are able to provide their products and services to people in a safe way, with minimal to no contact. Grocery stores and restaurants are some of the essential businesses where this has especially taken off, catapulting years ahead in the way they offer services to their customers.
As these essential services try to keep their facilities as clean and uncrowded as possible, and customers want to limit their exposure, there has been a huge increase in the implementation of digital ordering along with pick-up and delivery methods, particularly in small local establishments. While many stores offered this before the pandemic struck, it was a first for many who would have been slow to make the changes without COVID-19.
After experiencing the convenience this service offers, many customers will continue to use these newer age methods as their primary way of grocery shopping or eating out, a shift that would otherwise not have been seen for years to come.
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Related: How and What to Advertise Right Now – Marketing Experts Weigh In
Room to Try Things Differently
Consumer behavior has shapeshifted at an incredible rate over the course of the past few months, and continues to do so on a daily basis. While this has made some businesses’ digital advertising strategies hard to nail down, it has also created opportunities for trying new things.
How people interact with businesses’ products or services, and how they are searching for things online, is changing too quickly to predict metrics like you might normally be able to. So now is the time to try some things differently. A/B test your paid search ad campaigns and monitor what works, often. Try new ways of marketing your retargeting messages to see what consumers find most engaging.
The key here is to be agile and ready to shift at any moment. Now is not the time to set your digital campaigns and let them run unchanged for months at a time, but rather to try different tactics often and see what works.
Patience and Unity
Throughout all of this, one theme in looking for the positives has been prevalent – we’re all in this together, going through a challenging time as one world. With that sense of unity has come patience and understanding from consumers toward businesses.
The vast majority of people are understanding if their order takes longer than usual to deliver or their experience is not perfect. Life is not perfect, and at this time in history we’re all seeing that, together. Because of this, trying something new has a little extra breathing room around it with consumers right now, so be mindful of that with your strategies.
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