What The Coronavirus Means for Marketers
The sad truth is that COVID-19 spreads quickly and will continue to spread for a while. No one really knows how many people will be injured or unfortunately die, but it has caused the global stock markets to crash, which means that you as a company and even as a marketer, will be affected. These factors tell what the coronavirus means for marketers.
Business Will Struggle for Some Time
Even if the virus slows quickly as numbers in China drop, companies will struggle for more than a year because they will have to recoup their losses.
Just look at the travel industry. The virus is expected to cost them $820 billion. Virgin Atlantic just asked its employees to take 8 weeks of unpaid leave.
The ports are also empty and the first rounds of layoffs have already begun. Overall, COVID-19 is estimated to cost the global economy $2.7 trillion. And people not only lose money, but they also lose traffic and conversions.
Organic Traffic Fell in Most Industries
If you work in the news industry or in the financial field, your traffic goes up exponentially. And if you’re into the travel business, you’ve noticed a massive drop in traffic.
You can’t tell from the graph, but e-commerce has been a mixed bag, depending on which sites they’re selling traffic up or down. For example, if you sell baby products like diapers or wet wipes, you’ve noticed a nice increase in traffic.
But if you sell luxury items like big-screen TVs, you’ll see a drop in traffic.
Conversions Have Also Declined in Most Industries
From a conversion rate standpoint, we’ve also seen a decline in most industries. Even the financial sector, which has seen a massive boom in traffic, has fallen in remittances.
As for media sites, they have seen a significant increase in conversion rate, many of which force people to read their updated information.
People didn’t want to miss out on the coronavirus and political and financial information with the turmoil, so news sites saw good momentum.
And with some sectors like travel, they are currently offering massive discounts, which helps offset some of the traffic drops. In general, they are still experiencing huge profits.
Pay per Click Data
When there has been a huge drop in the number of people searching for things like flights or hotels, there hasn’t been a sharp drop in CPC, instead has been a huge increase in CPA.
In other words, you can still pay roughly the same amount per click, but the conversion cost has gone up in most industries unless you’re selling essentials like toilet paper.
During an economic downturn, you’ll find that you’ll have less competition, which means it’s easier and faster to get results, and in some cases, you’ll be able to get deals, like a potential reduction in pay-per-click advertising.
If you are lucky enough to have some cash during a recession, this is the best time to buy another business. The ideal companies to buy are media companies.
Whenever you see your competitors shutting or slowing down their marketing, the goal should be to double it. You may not see the greatest return right away, but you will in the long run.
Every time the market drops 20% or more, it takes about 536 days to recover. We don’t even know how far we’ll get to the bottom or when we’ll hit the bottom.
As we recover, you will notice a rise in your revenue and ROI on your marketing investment.
