The Effects of Corona Virus on Digital Marketing: All You Need to Know!

The only news that is dominating the news channels and newspapers today is nothing but Coronavirus. People are glued to their mobile phones, computers and television sets trying to get updates and further information on the virus. Actually, it is obvious that people are sitting at the edge of their chairs. This virus has literally crippled the world. The death tolls have hit the sky, people are suffering in all countries. This suffering is not only health wise but also business wise. It has affected mostly all the professional fields, tourism, travel, hospitality, finance, etc. Needless to say, it has also affected digital marketing! How?? Let’s read and find out!

The digital marketing arena has been greatly affected by the Coronavirus outbreak. It has affected not only Asia, but also the neighbouring markets of Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong and Taiwan. The effects have been majorly in the fields of paid search, audience search query, etc.

• AUDIENCE SEARCH QUERY: Due to the Coronavirus outbreak, the search interest in the customers have seen a visible increase. The keyword ‘coronavirus’ in various languages have been searched by customers on a daily basis. This keyword is also improvised as per their search requirements, for example: ‘coronavirus effects in India’, ‘latest coronavirus updates’, etc. According to Google Trends, the searches have reached as high as 100 across all markets globally. This trend took a steady rise in the third week of January, 2020 and has peaked by the last week of January
• ADVERTISING: The increased search trends for the keyword ‘coronavirus’ and other related keywords gave opportunities to the businesses in the medical field to offer related services. So, the search engine results pages for this keyword in Asia brought about a new upsurge in the market. In Japan, advertisers created advertising trends based on the keyword on Google Ads. Basically, the objective was to inform customers more about Coronavirus, thus, catering to their search requirements. However, one thing must be kept in mind, a searcher searching for the keyword ‘Coronavirus’ may not be a potential customer himself/herself. In such a case, you need to ask the healthcare digital marketing agency near you to optimize keyword match types and negatives to gain the most return on the amount spent on advertising

In keeping with this, the businesses that do not consider Coronavirus to be a major scope for improvement and positivity in their businesses need to carefully check on their daily digital marketing expenditures as broad-match keywords may lead to incremental traffic from the search query. The present scenario, however, could be a good opportunity for advertisers, but the severity of the disease and lack of medical solutions may be the reason for them to keep away from it

• DIGITAL INTERVENTION: With the Coronavirus outbreak, remote work has become a trend. Face to face meetings are all cancelled in most parts of the world. People have been recommended to use online technologies to share information with others in their organizations. The use of YouTube videos has become quite a trend among teachers as well. Teaching students through online worksheets, videos, etc., are trends to be followed now, in order to work as well as keep safe from the life-threatening virus covering the globe. The role of digital marketing in healthcare industry, social media has also increased over the past few months. The users are constantly using platforms like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to keep themselves and the others informed about Coronavirus, its effects, symptoms and ways to avoid it
• RECOMMENDATIONS: In case there are businesses who want to make the most of this opportunity from the advertising and marketing point of view, should consider the following:
  • Doing a daily review of the search query reports. They should make a list of search queries that are only consuming costs and not doing much to meet the objective. A decision has to be taken whether to pause the use of the keywords, add negative terms, etc.
  • Optimizing bids to ensure that the keywords in use have enough of impression share for a solid presence to create promising search results

In case there are businesses that are not interested in making the most of this opportunity, should consider the following:

• Reviewing search query reports on a daily basis to ensure that unwanted traffic in not attracted to the site. In case this is already happening, then adding related keywords as negatives would be recommended
• Checking if the campaigns are covering a wide variety of topic as you are targeting a mass audience

Considering that medical solutions for this virus can improve and impact the search demands, the businesses should consider the following:

• Keeping a close watch on the news and the updates it shares on a daily basis to understand and be prepared for potential demands

In fact, recently the search interest for the keyword ‘mask’ has risen dramatically. People are intrigued to know about the uses and availability of masks to protect themselves from this deadly disease