As the lockdown caused by the coronavirus slowly lifted in several countries, business owners have realized that the business situation is not the same as before. And now, they must find another way to perform their sales and marketing. For this reason, at Word Philocaly, we present you with some key marketing trends to help you adapt to this COVID-19 crisis in Malaysia.
The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted the global economy, changing the way businesses reach and interact with customers. This new normal has prompted new ways for us to operate our businesses and do marketing onwards.
The digital transformation that we have discussed for years has accelerated greatly for many businesses – even more so during the COVID-19 crisis.
It has been generating many opportunities for businesses to boost their income through previously unused channels such as SEO and voice recognition.
The rapid demand and adaptation through digital channels are because people are spending more time online during the pandemic. While being quarantined, they interact with almost everything via the internet.
This digital transformation is inevitable and it will change every individual and business – regardless of your industry or business profile. As a result, business owners need to take crucial steps to keep the economy moving, preserve jobs, and open business doors for faster economic recovery. This is what new marketing trends are all about.
Marketing Trends for COVID-19 Crisis in Malaysia
Here are some tools you can adopt to accustom to the new business normal:
Health and Safety Standards and Compliances
New workplace safety rules are being created around the world to ensure the coronavirus does not spread further. Owners of businesses are required to follow the health and safety standards and regulations strictly to reopen their doors.
Many countries around the world have developed comprehensive safety and security guidelines to reopen their businesses. In Malaysia, the guidelines can be found in three platforms:
- Ministry of Health (Kementerian Kesihatan Malaysia)
- World Health Organization (WHO)
- National Security Council (Majlis Keselamatan Negara)
- University Malaysia (Universiti Malaya)
- Ministry of Human Resources (Kementerian Sumber Manusia)
The guidelines vary slightly from country to country, but the basic principles remain the same:
- You must take care of the health of your employees more than you have ever done before.
- Your business operations should be adjusted to avoid person-to-person interactions whenever possible
- When remote operations are not possible, you must ensure that employees and/or customers can maintain adequate social distancing
There are already platforms that provide companies with tools to easily integrate security mechanisms into their operations.
- MySejahtera, an application created by the Malaysian government to assist in managing the COVID-19 crisis in the country. This includes giving business owners tip to safely monitor their employees and customers
- Yelp offers business reopening tools that allow local businesses to communicate essential safety information and updates to customers
- Vcita, this platform is designed for small business management with a suite of products for online and retail businesses to comply with security and safety guidelines. The solution comprises of health declaration checkbox, symptom questionnaires, contactless transactions, reservation management, and others.
Make Your Products or Service Available Everywhere
The digitization of businesses has accelerated enormously, online shopping has grown at an unprecedented rate. This trend is thought to persist even after the COVID-19 crisis has ended. However, it is not just about making your products or services available through a web browser; you have to think outside the box as online shopping is becoming more diverse.
By working and spending more time at home, consumers are adapted to find and disclose new shopping methods and channels. These channels include product comparison apps, voice-assisted devices, and many others.
This can be a piece of good news for most companies, as more channels mean more opportunities to diversify sources of your customer acquisition sources. Here are things to consider to move towards this direction:
1. Think “mobile-first”:
This includes having a mobile-friendly website, as well as creating more mobile assets to better serve your customers. For example, mobile apps, in-game mobile marketing, location-based mobile ads, SMS (Short Message Service) marketing, CTAs (Call to Action) focused on mobile devices, and others are all good “mobile-first” initiatives.
2. Include your products on Google Shopping Actions:
This Google tool presents your products in front of buyers across multiple platforms such as smartphones and Google voice search. Google Shopping Action allows customers to have a smooth shopping experience through instant checkout and a universal shopping cart.
Customers can turn browsing into purchasing easily. As shopping becomes increasingly automated, smaller retailers run the risk of being left out; while larger brands are targeting consumers directly. Google’s project is a strong way for small businesses to deliver a consistent shopping experience across multiple devices.
3. Rethink SEO during and after the COVID-19 Crisis:
Products or services that are most affected during the COVID-19 crisis are tourism, events, ticket selling, transportation, etc. However, these sectors are likely expected to have a much higher search volume after the crisis. Therefore, digital and online platforms will have much more influence on the buyer’s purchase decision than before.
For the least affected industries, such as software and applications, have a tremendous impact on people’s lives especially at the beginning of the pandemic. These industries and sectors have grown extremely fast and brought forth the change in website content and SEO (Search Engine Optimization).
The way of how people buy is changing and thus your must also review your SEO and content marketing strategy.
The review must include details such as new customer’s requirements and concerns.
The new buyer’s behavior occurs not only in the SEO strategy but also in the way the sale is made. Some of the major retailers are already reassigning their sales team to serve on online chat platforms.
With these changes, it will take longer for potential customers to make a purchase. This is because they would want to consume more content to know more about a product or service to make a more conscious purchase. Your prospects want to ensure that they are confident in your products or services and have made the right choice.
Increasing your content marketing efforts to help potential customers throughout their entire journey is crucial. This can be a great opportunity to gain customer’s trust especially at the time of purchase.
Make Your Products or Services to Be Found by Voice
COVID-19 crisis has sped up the adoption of various technologies, including the use of smart voice assistant and voice search.
If the search cannot discover your product or service websites, you are missing out on a huge market share. This is because the use of voice search for products and services has been growing exponentially with no signs of slowing down.
To ensure that your business can be found by voice search, here are some voice optimization tactics:
a. Since most voice search users are looking for local queries, subscribe to your local listing.
Also, keep your listing organized and up-to-date. Monitor the media and reviews your customers provide.
b. Optimize for unbranded queries:
More than two-thirds of local search impressions come from ‘discovery’ or unbranded searches.
c. Optimize your site for featured snippets because these are what smart assistants typically read in response to a voice search query:
- Adopt good long-tail search (keywords): Optimize long-tail keyword queries because it’s more likely to trigger a featured snippet
- Add product questions and answers (Q&A) and frequently asked questions (FAQ). This is to make your product pages appear in the Google Ask and Featured boxes.
d. Participate in Google projects:
This includes Google Speakable. Google Speakable allows you to record an audio version of your content so that Google provides voice-assisted search engines with more detailed results.
e. Focus on optimizing intent:
Voice seekers are often in the middle of a task, in a hurry, or on the go. Unless you immediately give them what they come for, they will likely move on to a more suitable search result. Text optimizer dissects what the search intent is for your products or services, helping you create an optimized copy. An optimized copy can prioritize search intent over keywords.
It is the most challenging time for all types of businesses, regardless of their sizes and categories. Digitization and the adoption of new technologies will help your business survive. So, use the above trends and tactics to give your business a competitive advantage and survive in times of uncertainty such as this COVID-19 crisis.
We invite you to visit our platform: https://wordphilocaly.com, where you will get more information to help you with your digital transformation. If you’re ready to work with us, please contact us with this number directly.
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