Digital marketing: Driving sales while sailing through turbulence

As the world today is pushed into extended lockdown and social distancing to combat the Covid-19 pandemic, digital media has assumed a central position in the marketing mix of companies. While companies today are not new to the digital space, digital marketing is the most effective tool at the moment to garner brand recognition, customer attention and support online sales when brick-and-mortar touchpoints are shut. It has now moved beyond handling a few sales channels to connect marketing to the business goals of a company. As the internet became integral to our lives, here’s how digital marketing has proved to be helpful for a range of businesses:

 

Retail and supermarket chains

Despite the surge in e-commerce, according to an estimate, in-store sale accounted for 90 per cent of all retail sales in the US in 2017. But it all changed with Covid-19 pushing traditional stores and marketing efforts out of the picture.

Retail giants have redesigned their product catalog for online-only sales while also working with hyper-local delivery services to stay cost-efficient and cut down on delivery turn-around time. Their mobile apps are updated quickly to interact with customers virtually as well as driving sales. The applications include product information, launch announcement, real-time status of delivery and more. 

For example, in the absence of brick-and-mortar stores, Indian retail giants Big Bazaar and Spencer stuck to their omnichannel marketing during the pandemic to ensure an effortless buying experience for consumers. Others added grocery delivery to their service and leveraged insight from the Pandora’s Box of their consumer data to deliver a personalised shopping experience online.

 

Food delivery service

With people stuck indoors, food delivery services have witnessed a surge like never before. Since restaurants and food-courts are not an option anymore, people are turning to delivery to treat themselves at home. On-demand food delivery services like UberEats in the USA and Swiggy in India have been using the social media platforms to reach out to customers about new offerings, reduced delivery turn-around time and contactless delivery options.

Others in this category are also leveraging the prospects of emerging cloud kitchen businesses with digital advertising and interactive content to monetise their last-mile reach.

When it comes to digital campaigns, it’s possibly the best time to tell a story with an emotional trigger. Indian food delivery service Zomato celebrated Mother’s Day amid the lockdown this year with a digital campaign focused on mothers who dedicate so much time cooking delicious food for their kids. It was aimed to strike a chord with customers by emphasising on realisation of a mother’s love for her children with #OrderForMom.

Ed-tech

Akin to food-tech companies, ed-tech majors also witnessed a significant increase in the number of new students enrolling on their platforms since March 2020 — students are now more dependent on online learning than ever before.  

Ed-tech players like BYJU’S, Unacademy, UpGrad in India know what the Gen-Z and their parents want and tweaked their digital marketing strategy on this two-pronged approach. Not surprisingly, their digital campaigns, social media marketing and market research paid off better than other intrusive channels (like SMS and emails) to expand the student base.

As most schools and universities are likely to be closed for the remainder of the academic year, the new-age platforms are allowing students to take up from a range of courses like university-certified MBA to diploma programs at a competitive cost. In fact, most ed-tech players are now offering free access to their platforms, content and live classes for students as a part of their user acquisition strategy.

 

Healthcare

Be it a solo practice, small clinic or a multi-specialty chain, services are the product for healthcare players. But a responsive website, Google Adwords campaigns and SEO tactics may not be adequate during an uncertain time like this. Healthcare companies and start-ups are turning to social media to share professional knowledge regarding healthcare — the aim is to attract customers, build trust and drive awareness as a part of their digital marketing strategy.    

Beyond localised organic marketing (SEO), players in the healthcare industry are also using their Covid-capabilities as lead generators for other specialised service lines, create digital access-points for elective procedures and specialty care, as well as catering to the increasing demand for online medical content. Multi-channel initiatives like engaging with chatbots can be preferable to some customers, while others may choose Twitter or Facebook page to interact with the brand. Digital marketing tools like information blogs, educative video contents and interactive touch-points for customers can also overshadow traditional marketing in these uncertain times.

Turn ‘social’ for engagement at workplace

If employee engagement is imperative as a business tool today, nothing can beat the social media to achieve the desired results  

It doesn’t matter who you are — an entrepreneur, CXO or a fresh recruit in an MNC — you just can’t ignore the omnipresence of social media! Not surprisingly, organisations globally are leveraging the strength of social media to interact and engage with stakeholders, crowd source ideas/ solutions, build brands, campaigns, crisis mitigation et al. Within an organisation, it is also a critical tool for effective employee engagement and communication.

As the modern workplace is turning mobile and diverse, social media is the answer to operational changes, employee relations and in-house campaigns. But first thing first: social media doesn’t survive in a silo. And even if it does, it should not be evaluated in isolation. Its effectiveness within an organisation bears a direct co-relation with fundamentals of the organisational culture and other tools of internal communication like in-house magazines, the intranet, staff meetings, videos, emails, message boards, etc.

With more and more Millennials making their way into the workforce, communications today are about speed, accuracy and seamless exchange of data and ideas. So, in a modern office, it’s about webinars, micro blogging, pictures and videos, applications, instant messaging and more. One of the fundamental hallmarks of these is proactive interaction, which leads to engagement.

In a complex work environment, social media is the platform to correct mistakes, apologise and acknowledge not-so-pleasant feedback among internal stakeholders. This is critical for an organisation to bring down internal glass-barriers and maintain a collaborative culture along the hierarchy. It only helps build confidence in an employee and make him feel connected when he/she receives a social recognition online, made part of a decision making process — something which the pay packet cannot ensure. This results in an upturn in creativity and innovation, and overall improvement in work quality.

Issues of security and compliance in a workplace can no longer restrict an employee from being on the social media. It’s time organisations see its employees in a different light — not as potential time-bombs that could go off without warning, but as engaged, proactive brand ambassadors.