For the past couple of months, retailers have had to respond and adapt to the pandemic with non-essential retail stores being forced to close. As a result, advertisers have had to focus all their marketing efforts online and respond to the change in consumer behaviour.
However, now is the time to start revisiting your marketing strategies to prepare for the next change in consumer behaviour once non-essential retail stores begin to open.
As stated by Wold, in Econsultancy, before the pandemic, consumers priorities when purchasing were quality (48%), price (47%) and brand (24%). Today, this has changed to availability (49%), price (36%) and quality (34%).
The question advertisers need to ask themselves is, will consumer behaviour change again? Will people prefer to shop in-store or continue to buy online? These questions will determine how consumers will shop in the future, and advertisers need to prepare for this potential change. For instance, if consumers start to prioritise health and safety in-store over quality when purchasing, advertisers will need to accommodate for this.
Content Marketing and COVID-19
Content marketing is an effective way to update consumers. For example, you could write a blog article outlining how your business, staff and suppliers are all taking COVID-19 health and safety measures to protect themselves and the public. Additionally, it could set out how social distancing will work when visiting and shopping in-store. Consumers shopping habits and behaviour will change, so informing them of what measures you’re taking to create a safe shopping environment, can be the difference between making a purchase in-store, visiting a competitor, or shopping online. The article should then be shared via social media to build awareness.
COVID-19 will be around for a while and will remain in consumers’ mindset, and there is an opportunity to create a new section on your website to house content covering this topic. Content can include business updates, such as new store openings, health and safety measures, warehouse distribution etc. as well as essential and relevant Government updates, and how you’re supporting keyworkers. Currently, this type of content is evergreen, so it’s necessary to keep your website updated. It also alerts consumers that as a business, you’re taking it seriously, thus, building loyalty and confidence amongst your target audience. These pages can also be optimised to support what users are searching for online.
Pay-Per-Click and COVID-19
Pay-Per-Click is another effective way to publicise your business’ COVID-19 health and safety measures. For example, this can be achieved via an offline campaign where you can amend ad-copy, as well as use the location targeting to a 1-mile radius from your store. This type of ad campaign will target those most likely to be interested in shopping in-store.
You could also amend sitelinks on your search ads to include COVID-19 health and safety and direct people to your blog, for example, to find out more details.
Of course, these are just some examples of how you can revisit your marketing strategy to accommodate potential consumer behaviour. All advertisers will most likely keep re-vising their over-arching strategy this year with many external factors still uncertain.
For more information on how to adapt your marketing strategy to coincide with COVD-19 and consumer behaviour, get in touch with PushON today on 0161 820 7628 or sales@pushon.co.uk.
References: https://econsultancy.com/covid-19-changed-shopper-behaviour-online-stats/
