Using content for marketing during Covid-19.
Marketing budgets are being slashed all over the world. This Forrester research says that marketing budgets all over the world have definitely declined due to the Covid-19 outbreak, but they are expected to start going up by the end of 2020 and may recover by 2021.
But it depends on which side the unpredictable camel of the outbreak sits. Nothing is for sure right now. Many countries don’t even know what their current position vis-à-vis the outbreak is.
According to the above research, the CMO’s are taking the money out of out-of-home advertisements and moving the budgets to digital marketing for obvious reasons.
Despite the lunatics denying the severity of Covid-19, lesser number of people are moving out and are spending time working from home and consequently, being in front of the screen for longer durations.
Another thing many marketers are stressing is that, you shouldn’t stop marketing. A McGraw-Hill research of the 1981 and 82 recession found that businesses that marketed aggressively during the recession had 256% higher sales than those that did not.
But how do you market yourself if your business is making less money than before?
The answer is content marketing.
You spend less money than you spent on traditional advertisements, and it is far more effective. Especially now, when digital marketing is more effective than traditional marketing.
You can either publish original content or you can re-purpose your existing content, or you can do a mix of both.
The point is, now is the right time to let your customers and clients know that you are still in the game (you haven’t been destroyed by the Covid-19 outbreak) and you are still actively promoting yourself.
The dust is settling. In the early months of the year people were caught off-guard. Emotions were running high. People were scared and concerned. They were caught unaware.
Although the virus is widespread and a big part of the population is infected (in New Delhi right now 33% of the population is reported to have been infected by the virus), people are less worried. A lot has to do with the ignorance about the effects of the virus, but many businesses are getting back to their feet.
https://twitter.com/AmritHallan/status/1285550801151119361
During this time, it is nice if you set a healthy example and use content marketing and digital marketing to promote yourself. Here are a few things you can do with your content:
Repurpose existing content
If you feel you have already got lots of content on your website or blog but you need to add new content, you can consider repurposing your existing content.
You may like to read: How to re-purpose old content?
Repurposing your content means generating new formats of content out of your existing content pieces.
For example, if you have a detailed blog post on how to do content marketing on mobile phones, perhaps you can create a slideshow or a video. You can also create a PDF e-book that people can download.
Refocus on your email marketing
Email marketing is a big part of content marketing, in fact, the most effective aspect of it. When you send emails to your prospects, your message appears right in their inbox.
You may like to read 15 ultimate content writing hacks for successful email marketing.
Of course, before you can send them emails, you need to win their trust so that they regularly open your emails.
Winning the trust of your email recipients is a different ballgame and requires a dedicated post, but for the time being, you need to understand that since most of the people are confined to their homes, they are more receptive to receiving valuable information through emails.
This Campaign Monitor study has revealed that more people are opening their emails than before. From February to March, businesses reported a 16% change in the open rate of emails.
This American Express blog post has shared some insights on the emerging email marketing trends during Covid-19 and what you can do to make your email marketing as effective as possible.
Accelerate your content publishing
Since more people are working from their homes, they are consuming targeted content with greater frequency than when they were going to their offices.
Also, while working in isolation, people are searching for relevant information to solve their day-to-day professional problems.
Basically, everything on the Internet is content. What you publish on your website, whether they are web pages or blog posts, is content. What you publish on social media, is content. When you send an email marketing campaign, you are broadcasting content.
To publish purposeful content during the outbreak, you first need to find out what your core audience is looking for.
For example, my clients want to improve their search engine visibility through quality content. These days, on my blog, I’m publishing lots of content that can help you improve your search engine rankings vis-à-vis the Covid-19 outbreak.
Information is another thing that people are constantly looking. They want to remain informed. Whatever business they are dealing with, they want to get the right information about whether the business can deliver or not.
You can also sail your content marketing boat on uncharted waters. If you have never published case studies, maybe now is the right time because they are a big confidence booster. If you have never published videos on your website, perhaps now is the right time.
Content marketing can help you in multiple ways during these trying times. For example, it can help you stay in front of your customers and clients. You can help them by providing them useful information and as a result, increase customer loyalty.
It was also set in motion your core content marketing strategy even after Covid is over.