How will digital marketing work in a post-COVID world? Will it change tremendously? Will it still be relevant? Right now, millions of marketers and business owners around the world are asking these questions. For the first time in a long time, they do not have any comparable past situation to drive lessons and inspiration from.
And this is true for everyone, from junior marketers to top experts. The fact is, nothing will be the same for any person and any business. While economists warn about a coming crisis, consumers are already changing their spending behaviour. Some of them are already without a job or had their revenues cut.
What Is the Consumer Sentiment in Australia?
Before we move on to the way digital marketing may evolve and adapt to a post-pandemic world, it is worthwhile looking at a survey conducted by McKinsey & Company. The survey was conducted in mid March in several countries across the globe.
Key data for Australia indicate that:
- Consumers intend to spend more money on essential groceries, entertainment at home and non-food child products;
- People are increasing their consumption of visual entertainment: movies or shows, live news and video content;
- Most consumers remained loyal to their brick and mortar shops and online stores;
- In-store grocery shopping remains one of the few face-to-face activity Australians will keep post-COVID.
The information above indicates a few directions for digital marketing in the near future:
- To promote digital entertainment
- To strengthen customer loyalty
- To promote online shopping.
How Do Experts Envision the Future of Digital Marketing?
Looking beyond short term trends, this is how marketing experts see the major changes in their industry and the role of digital marketing in the future:
1. Agile and Quickly Adaptable to Changes
The COVID pandemic forced many businesses to become agile in their processes and marketing strategies. As brick and mortar stores closed, they found ways to direct all customers to their online store, find delivery partners and adapt their products and services to the new necessities of the market.
Digital marketing was no different. Actually, for many businesses it was a matter of catching up very quickly with the best practices of digital marketing, as their branding and promotional activities were mostly focused on offline marketing. The fact that they learned so quickly proves that digital marketing can be extremely agile and adaptable.
2. Increased Automation in Content Creation and Deployment
We don’t mean to say that marketers and content writers will be replaced by robots. However, as AI is now capable of advanced translation, for instance, brands will use its capabilities to version their content for different markets.
In terms of content deployment, more and more marketers will rely on smart tools for publishing, social monitoring, collecting analytics data and other similar tasks.
3. Increased Video Content Creation for Social Media
The COVID-pandemic made everyone turn to social media for information and entertainment. It is right in their pocket, on the smartphone and it delivers content in an easily manageable format: short videos and captions.
The short video will become the star of digital marketing. Also known as snackable video content, this trend will see a lot of brands adapting their brand stories and promotion and wrapping it into a format adapted to the consumers’ short attention span.
4. An Integrated Approach to Digital Marketing Strategies
Digital marketing is not a standalone industry. It is intrinsically linked with sales, customer service, logistics and delivery. Historically, though, marketing and sales teams have acted like competitors.
This will no longer be possible in the future. As data becomes the most valuable asset for any business, various departments will have to share every bit of information and insight they have for the success of the overall business.
5. Consumer Marketing Will Be the Winning Strategy
Everyone accepts that we live in a consumer centric world. But digital marketing is still split between branding and promotions. This will all have to come together and turn into consumer marketing.
What does it mean? It means that personalized, dynamic content will be king. Direct approach and relationship nurturing will be the norm. And the digital marketing strategy that really works is the one that relies on the most relevant and up to date buyer persona.