The COVID-19 around the world may seem like it is impacting the economic system of the country, and it is a threat to businesses, jobs, and health as well. However, companies are now turning to digital marketing in Covid-19 pandemic to increase the remote working and collaborative approach.

The companies who were using a face-to-face conversation with their customers to grow their product’s sale or depend on word-of-mouth referrals will have to face a huge loss in this COVID-19 pandemic.

On the other hand, the businesses that are advanced and following digital marketing strategies to boost their business and improve productivity are still enjoying major profits in this COVID-19 crisis.

If you are running B2B Company, then you’ll find yourself in the position of having lost millions, because of cancelled events. You need to move into social media marketing, SEO, and content marketing as soon as possible to mitigate the stress of persuading customers through face-to-face communication. Here, digital is a clear winner, as companies who are associated with social media channels, they continue their work from home without any disruption. Here, digital marketing is taking a great leap as the outcome of COVID-19.

In this COVID-19 crisis where we are locked in our home and unable to go to the office and most important the companies who are not using social media channels to connect with their customers are facing more problems. Therefore, the point is to use digital marketing to continue your work instead of predicting how long this will last.

# Impact of COVID-19 on business

Although no business has been escaped from COVID-19 pandemic, those businesses that are suffering more are startups or more relied on face-to-face interaction such as beauty and hair salons, gym, and clothing stores.

Many businesses that are facing high-revenue losses are cutting marketing costs instead of exploring new and effective options for their customers. The major affected companies are B2B who serve these smaller companies.

Besides this, many businesses from small to large can benefit from digital marketing. To prevent losing customers, businesses have to change the way to reach their target audiences. Even, if you have a small business still it’s not too late, you can join the online business to show your online presence on the web.

# Role of digital marketing in Covid-19

The only way to prevent you and your family from the virus is to stay home, and that’s what people are doing around the world. To entertain themselves or to pass the time, people are mostly spending their time on the Internet by browsing the web and communicating with their relatives and friends via social media channels.

Since everyone is staying at their home and using social media, traffic to websites and social media channels are significantly increased. Hence, it is an opportunity for many businesses to show their online presence instead of waiting for when lockdown will open.

Digitally savvy businesses have an opportunity to deliver valuable engagement to digital users in a time of the epidemic. With this, businesses that have no experience with digital marketing, also opting for digital marketing techniques to stay in their field.

# Why digital marketing is the key to business to survive in this COVID-19 pandemic?

The companies who have been already using digital marketing techniques know the importance of digital marketing, and those who are far away from Instagram, Facebook, or other social media channels, now they will realize the worth of digital marketing. Here, the following are some points which will tell you the value of digital marketing in this epidemic:

1. The companies who are suffering from an excessive amount of loss because their events and conferences are cancelled and they are considering money and time spent on those events, it is a huge loss to those organizations.
2. From small to large companies, it is recommended to use digital marketing to survive in this COVID-19 pandemic and make revenue by sitting at home. Even many small organizations are trying to adapt to these new marketing techniques.
3. The companies that were not giving preference to digital marketing are now opting for creating SEO marketing, social marketing strategies, and content marketing.

While there are some might feel that after lockdown everything will be back to normal, but no one knows how long it will go. So, it will be beneficial for every business to adapt to this new norm and go digital. Many people don’t like an in-person meeting, and they would prefer digital channels or digitized platforms now and after lockdown too.

The following are some points to be considered to know why digital marketing will be a key to your business in this COVID-19 pandemic:

• Digital Marketing in Covid-19

In this COVID-19, where your offices are closed, but still you can do digital marketing for your business. You can use plenty of digital marketing tools such as SMO, SEO, Google AdWords campaign, and pay-per-click (PPC), etc. to boost your website ranking.

You can regularly update your website content and onsite SEO which can help you to improve the performance of your website.

• Social Media Marketing (SMM)

As you know, most people are spending their time by scrolling their social media profiles and using other digital platforms, hence it is the opportunity for your business to use a Social Media Marketing Strategy post updated content on social media to capture the attention of your target audience toward your services.

• Content Marketing

At this lockdown period, when people are looking for new and fresh content or blog to read so that they can get relevant information about a specific topic, hence through content marketing you can seek the attention of your target audience and engage more customers on your website. And you can also publish this content on your different social media channels to keep your target audience informed.

You can get more online following on your social media profiles by including:

• Posting informative or funny content.
• Establishing a strong and strategic partnership with your influencer.
• Sharing trending and useful tips which can influence your target audience.

• Live Campaigning

In this technological era, where online conversation and instant messaging are so common, you can start online/live campaigning so that you can maintain a healthy relationship with other companies and customers. With a live campaign, you can engage more customers, because people are free and staying at their home so you can conduct a campaign and seek the attention of your customers.

If you are making efforts to stay online to make revenue, similarly other businesses are also making efforts. As you know, gyms are closed to prevent people from coronavirus, but as a gym trainer you can also start online workout classes, and dentists can provide online dental consultations.

• Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

During COVID-19, more people are online right now as they are using their computers and phones looking for new updates and even some users are looking for entertainment just for fun.

Hence, this is the time to show your presence online, and being in the field of digital marketing, you should use search engine optimization (SEO) tactics to get high rankings in Google’s search engine result pages (SERPs) so that anyone can easily access your business or website. This is the reason why it is called that digital marketing is the key to your business.

• Pay-Per-Click (PPC) is a great opportunity for businesses

In this COVID-19 outbreak, more users are sitting in front of their screens, perhaps, PPC can be a great opportunity for businesses to engage with their customers and get a competitive benefit. Due to this lockdown, many advertisers may go offline, and if you are still active, then your business can gain tons of traffic and conversions because others are offline.

You can identify your product-market fit and support your customers by creating a special offer at a discount. Many people are looking for discounts to save money in this pandemic. It is a great opportunity for your business to engage more customers and make revenue that will help you to keep your doors open.

• Local SEO strategies can help to boost your business

Due to the COVID-19 lockdown, we have all reduced unnecessary visits and are staying close to home. However, in a rare time, we look for nearby places for services and suppliers. If you have a business that can serve customers in this lockdown, then you must ensure that your business is using local SEO strategies to optimize your website for “near me” searches. So, whenever they search for any service in your Geo region they can turn to you first.

• Email marketing helps to engage more customers

Email marketing can play a vital role in this lockdown as many people spend their time on the Internet. But, try to avoid sending the bulk of automated emails at this time and make a strategy.

If you are sending emails to inform your customers that how you are dealing with this crisis and still providing your services without taking any risk, then make sure that your information is relevant and your services are available, and you are open for business. Sending emails or messages can play an important role and will define how serious you are about your work and customers.

# How online working can help businesses to continue their work?

In this COVID-19, the critical issue that emerged amongst every country and business is the economy. Now, the question arises, what steps the government should take so that people can get back to their normal life. Obviously, it will take some time to recover from this epidemic, on the other hand, some organizations granted to work from home to their employees even before the lockdown. This thing shows the capability of the firms or organizations that they can survive by working at their place without going anywhere and can enjoy the earnings and profits.

However, clearly online working has its various advantages during the COVID-19 pandemic:

1. Businesses are still running when work premises is not in use or can’t be accessed by anyone.
2. It provides flexibility for staff who have to stay at their home and safe.
3. In addition to this, any employee who is suffering from any disease, not from coronavirus can work separately without getting in touch with anyone.
4. The environment is also having good impact due to less travel.

But all this requires the staff that have enough technical knowledge or who are from IT background and it may require staff to become more efficient in IT and web.

Working remotely can have major advantages not only for our business, but we can apply remote working to our lives as a whole:

• Social media channels can be utilized to stay connected with family and friends who cannot be visited in-person.
• For entertainment, the Internet can provide you with a source while others are not available.

# Future of digital marketing

It has been predicting that life would not get back to normal until 2021 because to develop an effective vaccine or cure, it will take some time. Due to this reason, digital marketing will become more important. Because of digital marketing, various organizations are getting profits and running their businesses.

Businesses that are typically based on face-to-face conversation, and following traditional marketing procedures to persuade a customer via an in-person meeting, need to use digital marketing as soon as possible before it’s too late. And those businesses who are already using digital marketing will have the opportunity to survive not only this crisis but also in the future.

# Conclusion

I recommend all businesses from small to large to go for digital platforms and invest your energy and time into creating a digital marketing strategy that can help to boost your business now and in the future. Even those businesses that don’t have even Facebook page can also opt for digital platforms to continue their work from home without waiting for a greater loss. You can start planning your digital marketing strategies and prepare yourself for doing business with new techniques.