In the fast-paced digital landscape, the rate of adoption needed is unprecedented. Lessons learnt earlier in the year when every business was forced to adapt on the fly now inform marketing strategies during the second wave. The following tactics used together, in a holistic approach will help to build a solid digital marketing framework. 

Increasing Engagement 

While mobile usability and friendliness are important, it is critical to understand that people use multiple devices more so than ever. In a multi-platform world, it is necessary to optimize the whole journey rather than a single touchpoint. Brands active and diversified across all platforms are more likely to grow in their following, engagement and brand presence. Engagement is particularly important, especially for brands that can’t directly serve their audience and non-essential businesses. 

Maximizing Social Media Impact

For companies or non-profits mindful of marketing budgets, there’s been an increased reliance on organic, user-generated information. With more consumers spending time online for social purposes, this is an opportunity for businesses to share brand-related information. These types of platforms are critical to increasing brand reach. 

Message Consistency  

Brands are now faced with becoming as human as possible across social media channels, while juggling necessary bits of marketing and selling. The ability to have consistent messaging across all mediums for specific types of traffic is more important than ever. 

Making the Most of Ad Budgets

Competition online has increased as pretty much every retailer has jumped online increasing cost per click (CPC) and cost per impressions (CPM). Campaigns running last year at certain budgets are looking at higher budgets this year for relatively the same amount of quality traffic. Ad quality is something to be cautious about. Anywhere there is a bidding situation, get used to seeing dramatic increases in ad spend. 

Adapting Search Engine Optimization

SEO is an adaptable resource that can be used in all sorts of online settings including search engine results, Google My Business, as well as social and blogging. Consumers are shifting how they search for different things online. Understanding the intent behind those search queries and how they are using their devices will help capture a greater share of attention. The right approach will translate to showing up higher across these efforts. 

Shift to E-Commerce 

One of the biggest changes in search engine results is how often e-Commerce shops come up in search rankings. This comes down to changes in user behaviour and intent. Shifts in purchasing behaviours have shaped the consumer path toward a heavy post-pandemic reliance on e-Commerce. 

When someone searches for something online and they are looking to purchase, the website they find must satisfy that intent. With more users looking to take action, intent on shopping and not venturing out, Google and search algorithms have started to adjust search results accordingly to be more satisfactory to those types of queries and intents. 

Going forward, e-Commerce will be a core component of business operations. While select industries may go back to normal, the ecomm infrastructure that has been embraced at this magnitude is not going away. 

Digital Transformation for a post-COVID-19 Era

A new digital landscape is taking shape. Going forwards, brands doubling down on changes by becoming more integrative, bringing more systems online, sharing data across platforms and getting more targeted in the way they operate will succeed. Post- COVID recovery will largely be data- driven. 

Rethinking Strategies to Emerge Stronger

How permanent the implications COVID-19 are in terms of consumer behaviour is unknown. Lockdowns have accelerated the adoption of new technologies, expanding what they can do. Brands that continue to embrace and adapt to shifting consumer behaviours will see increased  brand authority and opportunities for expansion.

Major shifts in digital behaviours are apparent for the vast majority of Canadians and Canadian businesses that are adapting to a challenging 2020 economy.

Consumer behaviours shifted violently in March of 2020, so much so that Google rolled out an (unconfirmed) update around the 11^th of March to match consumers change in search behaviours during that same time frame. This was driven primarily due to the pandemic, however search result pages across Canada and Ontario, had major changes in the type of websites that ranked (showed first on Google search).

By mid-April, Google published how search behaviours had changed due to the pandemic. What Google saw was categorized into 5 areas, with the biggest category called “Assembling Critical Information”. This category included searches related to retail and home delivery as the biggest sub-topics. These areas make up part of Google’s own push to “YMYL” (Your Money, Your Life) types of search results, which aims to provide the best search results possible that are related to users searches that involve a user's money (such as e-com) or a user’s life (such as breakout searches for ‘can you freeze..’ type of searches).

After Google had published the changes in behaviours on search in mid-April, Google rolled-out and confirmed a major update on May 4^th. This update had a major effect on rankings across Google. Seeing how Google’s focus is on the most relevant search results for their users, it makes sense that Google’s May update had further focus on “YMYL” types of searches/results during early 2020. Here at Thinkr, we continued to see significant ranking and traffic increases for our e-commerce clients during the same time period. One in particular was experiencing record setting week after week in terms of web traffic as well as real world sales.

Businesses that had already invested in and embraced their online presence (especially e-commerce) before any of the updates in 2020, were very well positioned to make gains early in the year.

The speed at which Canadian consumers have embraced the digital realm has been a quantum leap forward, considering that Canadians are typically slower to embrace new technologies and new ways of doing things in their daily lives. More specifically, working from home has had a major impact on the internet usage behaviours of Canadians across the country for both work and entertainment purposes. A typical workday has been condensed due to not commuting and distractions at home, as seen in this specific case of online usage trends below.

The traditional workday as seen in 2019 and earlier spread across 7 am to 6 pm, accounting for commuting time and the earlier birds into a workplace setting. This clearly has shrunk in 2020 to a more defined 9 am to 4 pm timeframe in the day. This, plus noticeable drops in session length, suggests narrowing of attention spans and the importance of high quality and specific content for intended audiences.

Device type data also showed the trend of Canadians across the country staying home during early 2020. An increase in desktop sessions in 2020 versus 2019 shows that Canadians across the country were less mobile, in the sense of being out of the home, while also spending more time on larger screen devices such as desktops and tablets.

This is confirmed through complied data from CIRA’s 2020 Internet Factbook of Canada:

We can also explore this data through the Toronto Internet Exchange public traffic stats; the start of the pandemic and work-from-home mandates across Ontario noted by the red arrow.

What is interesting with this data, is that although a typical workday is ‘shorter’, Canadians are using the internet far more than ever. Entertainment, shopping, social networking, and finances, overall usage time of the internet is up. This is one of the reasons why digital marketing popularity has increased so heavily in 2020.

With the increased usage of the internet in all aspects of Canadian life, businesses have been innovating and adapting to connect with their audiences and customers online in several ways. Of course, digital marketing, re-marketing, tracking, and attribution, are all critical elements to a digital campaign; however, competition on digital platforms is increasing. This increase in competition online is leading to audiences that are increasingly desensitized to digital ads, are more aware of ‘typical’ online ads, and avoid ads either on purpose or subconsciously.

Businesses that are advertising online now, and in the coming year, need to make sure that their ads span across multiple mediums, stand out from the competition in terms of visual and audio creative, capture analytics and key-performance-indicators, as well as being supported by a marketing strategy.

Here are the most effective marketing strategies you can take to re-evaluate your marketing plans during challenging times. 

Be ready to react to the reaction: After the initial shock of a new situation, consumers will react and create new trends, such as online shopping and social media behaviour. Adjust quickly; even if it is initially not ideal, clients are forgiving!

Be Brand ready: Is your brand updated and ready for the new normal? Is it E-friendly? Given the pandemic, and for the foreseeable future, there is limited physical engagement, word of mouth and socializing. Is your brand attuned to leave that lasting impression and keep you top of mind? Can it represent your business (virtually) as you would do personally, does it portray the right image and personality?

Find new opportunities: Are there new markets that have opened up? Can you change your product or service offering to address current needs? Can your skills and/or production equipment be used to support a changed need and make a profit?

Support your community: With unprecedented changes come unexpected situations and suffering. Be a good corporate citizen and help where you can. Throughout this pandemic, we have seen incredible support for local and independent businesses. A friend in need is a friend indeed! You will build a stronger brand and leave lasting impressions.

Offer convenience: Adapting to the new normal by offering convenience brought on by the pandemic. Curb-side pick-up, local delivery, online shopping, virtual shopping experiences, virtual communication etc.

Don’t curb marketing spend, redirect it! Now is not the time to go quiet and disappear. Redirect marketing spend to what works today. Paid ads, Search campaigns, aligning social media channels, build audiences and a following, have e-commerce ability, build your digital presence and signature.

Be ready for the future: We are getting used to dealing with major change. Learn from this process on how we (successfully) adapt and be ready to do it again! The pandemic, and with that the cause and effect, is an ongoing evolution we need to be ready for. Will there be a 2nd wave? What is our economic future and how do we position and prepare ourselves? Develop a strategy a roadmap.

Online Marketing Strategy: With the onslaught of digital marketing comes the ability to measure and analyze. There is much more data available. Use the data to adjust and fine-tune!

Think before you cut (your marketing team): Cost savings by reducing your marketing resources will backfire! In the virtual world we live in today, being marketing savvy and ensuring brand presence and awareness is a must. If you don’t do it, your competitor will…

Do it right: Managing your brand and ensuring your brand is visible will continue to play a key role in reaching your business goals. Doing this professionally, using experienced and capable people, resources and tools, will make your brand stand out from the rest. Your brand is your companies’ image and personality, if it looks bad or out of place, your target markets will perceive it that way!

Don’t stay idle. Build a foundation for the future by adapting your marketing strategy for the world that comes after by leaning into community, brand building, and timely insights.