Digital Advertising During COVID-19
Our world has been flipped upside down in the last few weeks and months with the spread of the COVID-19. As communities brace for the influx of cases, social distancing has become part of the vocabulary, which essentially means that people are not going out in public as much anymore. The regular group gatherings we might fill our calendars with are now filled with more time at home – and as a result, more time online.
In Britain, internet service providers have seen double-digit increases in broadband usage, with BT claiming traffic on its fixed network climbed as much as 60% compared to normal weekdays, while Vodafone says it’s seen mobile data traffic increase by 50% in some markets.
What does this mean for digital advertising?
#1: The Obvious: Digital ads are a huge opportunity! While some industries are struggling right now, many people ARE still shopping, but now instead of going to a physical store, they’re looking online. If you have an offer that meets needs of people NOW or can meet their needs without them ever leaving home, this is the time to be advertising to them. People are hyper-alert to emails and digital ads they’re seeing.
#2: Be Sensitive: This is not the time to look like an opportunist. There are serious implications for the virus and many people are experiencing that firsthand. Therefore, your ad campaigns needs to have a sensitivity to them during this season. Existing campaigns should be examined to see if they are still relevant right now and new campaigns need to be seen through the lens of sensitivity in this hard time.
#3: Fulfill Needs: There are some major needs right now and if you can help people fulfill those needs, why wouldn’t you want to help? You just need to make sure that you’re coming from an angle of service. One simple example is hair dye. For many people, having salons closed is a BIG deal for them, but if you can help them solve their daily life problems, do it.
#4: Stay smart: Regardless of a pandemic, you should be working from a place of strategy with your digital ads. Use retargeting, internet activity data, demographic data, and more to make smart decisions about WHO will get served your ad. If you have location-listening data from recent weeks, use that to target people who have specific interests or shopping patterns.
There’s never been a time in history where we’ve been so thankful for our digital world, and that makes digital advertising a huge opportunity for businesses who want to continue to thrive during this season. If you have questions about how to best position your company to do well with digital ads, talk to our team. We are seeing some interesting changes that have come out of user-behavior with COVID-19 and many of these are changing the landscape forever.