Three Reasons To Advertise While Everyone Is Home (And How To Do It!)

Jen Root, Senior Marketing Manager for adQuadrant

How To Advertise While Everyone Is Home

Is the current COVID-19 pandemic, and the economic downturn, something to shy away from, or seize? From an optimistic business and advertising point of view, it certainly poses a lot of opportunities. Peoples’ habits, expectations, and the way they look at life are changing. For businesses, this means there’s a chance to adapt and build meaningful, value-driven relationships with a brand new engaged audience and carry that relationship forward towards long-term exponential growth.

The challenge lies in the approach necessary to target a specific audience at this time and still see a return. A key part is using this awareness to drive campaigns, messaging, and profit forward.

1. Digital Engagement Is Sky High!

The current pandemic has created an unprecedented shift in the way we globally live and work. According to Unicef, about 3 billion people are currently in lockdown around the world. Closer to home, Forbes reports that nearly 50% of the U.S. workforce is now working remotely compared to just 15% pre-COVID-19.

This rapid change in peoples’ lifestyles has created new trends and buying habits that, as a business, you can leverage and benefit from through your advertising. For example, Polygon reported a record-high number of users of Steam in the gaming marketplace. Users rose substantially from 19 million in early March to a record high of 23.5 million in April. And as far as social platforms are concerned, TikTok, the leading platform in video sharing, saw 140,000,000 downloads in Q2 of 2020 alone.

It’s clear the world is not only craving connection and the feeling of being part of a community, but actively searching for it, too. As a business, it is unlikely you will ever experience an opportunity like this — to be in front of such a huge, engaged audience — again.

The combination of increasing online traffic and fewer advertisers also means that paid ads are more cost effective than ever. Plus, according to Neil Patel, when you average out money spent per industry across the globe, paid ads are producing a much higher return on investment than before COVID-19 hit. There has arguably never been a better time to run ads than now. On top of that and in light of its recent popularity surge, TikTok has also opened up brand new advertising channels for businesses to take advantage of. As it is almost certainly the most popular, engaged place on the internet right now and still relatively unsaturated, domination of any market is there for the taking. These are all encouraging signs that point towards ramping up your advertising.

2. Staying Ahead of Competition Has Never Been Easier

Businesses and advertising trends are currently in a state of division. Some are choosing to downsize, cut costs, and scale back while others are ramping up, pivoting and driving their advertising efforts forward. For those that are upscaling, according to MarketingWeek, these businesses are enjoying the lion’s share of the market, with a mere 7% of brands investing more in their marketing.

By advertising your business now, you have the chance to get ahead of your competition, thanks to an emerging double bump in the market. Both online engagement and sales are up simultaneously. According to Hubspot, consumers are researching and connecting with businesses at higher and more strategic levels in the business-to-business space. Marketing email volumes have held steady, declining by less than 1% week-over-week, and remain 25% higher than pre-COVID-19 averages. This increase is accompanied by a staggeringly high open rate that is 25% higher than pre-COVID-19 levels, a record for the year. Plus, month-over-month sales overall were up by 20.3% in March.

For those who want to trailblaze past their competition yet have concerns over the cost and risk, there is also a solution. Opting for recycling resources and offers you already have is proving effective to maintain exposure and credibility without compromising future growth.

For example, LinkedIn has opened up 16 of its existing learning courses for free. Google has made its video conferencing service, Hangouts Meet, available for all G-suite customers until July 1, 2020. Loom has made Loom Pro free for teachers and students, removed the recording limit on free plans, and cut the price for Loom Pro in half to help businesses and brands across the board. It is with this pay-it-forward approach that consumers will experience a trial-like service for an extended period of time.

Although much of the current climate we live in is uncertain, one thing is for sure; customers will remember the brands that remained visible, actively tried to help, and were there at a pivotal moment.

3. Remaining Relevant Is More Important Than Ever

As a business, if you don’t actively participate in advertising through the pandemic, you risk being left behind and losing touch with your audience. The way people act, think, and feel has likely been permanently altered by the collective COVID-19 experience. The best way to keep connected with your audience and come out the other side is to alter your messaging now. According to the Kantar COVID-19 barometer report, 64% of consumers want brands to communicate their values through their messaging, and there could not be a better time to start or scale up this strategy.

It’s important to do this with sensitivity, and in a way that matches the eb and flow of transformation. Current trends in advertising are already starting to reflect this. Patterm89 revealed that there has been a 30% decrease in the use of “human connection” imagery/content showing hugging, kissing, holding hands, etc. and an 8% decrease in travel imagery. On the other hand, washing and cleaning content and imagery usage are up 800%.

Start to think creatively about how to position your product or service and how it can benefit your audience in spite of the pandemic and reflect this message in your advertising and content. This adaptive approach has proven successful across brands of all sizes.

Netflix recently released “Netflix Party” to binge shows and movies with your friends, while we are all social distancing contributing to 15.77 million new paid subscribers globally. That is double what they had projected pre-pandemic. Popular cooking and e-commerce site Food52 saw a 36% increase in traffic, which is on par with the week leading up to Thanksgiving. They were quick to pivot to more recipe-based, home-cooking content to cater to their existing and new audience’s needs and are now experiencing a huge surge in popularity.

The pandemic has created a digital culture of connection and innovation never seen before. By continuing to advertise your business and brand to the masses, you will not just remain connected and relevant to your audience in the now, but also set yourself on an upward trajectory ready to hit the ground running when normality resumes.

Happy Advertising!

Jen Root is the Senior Marketing Manager at adQuadrant, Orange County’s premier Omnichannel Marketing Agency. adQuadrants leads with a strategy first approach and is your partner in growth by providing advanced digital solutions.

To find out more, go to https://adquadrant.com/