“The first lesson in constructing viral content is having the strength, courage, and self-confidence to get in touch with your own feelings, thinking about what profoundly affects you.” - Ken Poirot, Go Viral!: The Social Media Secret to Get Your Name Posted and Shared All Over the World!

Are you a digital marketer? If so, how is the global economic pause affecting your business? And, will you pivot your business processes to help your clients recover from the devastating effects of the coronavirus? 

COVID-19: Setting the scene  

Communities across the world are putting seemingly harsh intervention measures into place as governments attempt to limit the spread of the rampant spread of the coronavirus that is currently sweeping across the world. Succinctly stated, over 50% of the world’s population is under a lockdown or stay-at-home order.  

Most businesses are considered non-essential, and they have been forced to close. Employees either have been laid off, or they have been furloughed. Those companies whose business operations allow for the remote, work from home method, have allowed their staff to work from home.  

The World Economic Forum estimates that this pandemic will cost the global economy $1 trillion (USD). Consequently, companies are struggling to stay afloat, even if their staff can work from home.  

Therefore, the question that begs is, how do business organizations remain alive? Daniel Sun from Gartner provides the best answer:

“Companies need to leverage a systematic approach to strengthen the resilience of their current business models to ensure their ongoing operation during COVID-19… [And] … CIOs can play a key role in this process since digital technologies and capabilities influence every aspect of business models.”

In other words, the business process flow and organizational models, including their digital marketing model, must evolve and grow to meet the unique challenges facing the world during, and after the COVID-19 pandemic.

Ways digital marketers need to evolve post COVID-19

Here are some tips to help digital marketers pivot their business models to remain relevant as the world emerges from the lockdown and economic pause.

Remain relevant

One of the most important, if not the most important aspect for any digital marketer is to remain relevant.

Consumers want to know how the brands they support are managing the COVID-19 crisis. And, they want to know what measures the company is putting into place to make it safe for people to shop again. In summary, customers want to know whether companies and brands care about their emotional and physical well-being.

Therefore, digital marketers have a wonderful opportunity to use their creativity to show understanding and empathy towards their target audience’s plight. The fact is that no one knows how the future will turn out. The world has never been in this situation before. As a result, people are anxious about the future. And, brands can use this opportunity to spread a marketing message of “we’ve got this, together we will get through whatever post COVID-19 throws at us.”

Get the basics right

There are several basic rules that every digital marketer must add to every digital marketing strategy to ensure that the campaigns that from part of the overall strategy increase engagement and ultimately drive revenue. Otherwise, the brand will lose traction against its competition.

Because you don’t need a degree or formal qualification to work in this industry, it’s quite common for marketers to have missed some of the necessities of a successful digital marketing strategy. Consequently, it is vital to sign up for an online digital marketing course to ensure that you have laid the basic foundation correctly when planning and implementing a digital marketing strategy.  

As an aside, this point’s importance and relevance increase exponentially as a consequence of the economic challenges the world is currently facing and will continue to the fact for quite some time. 

Create viral content  

Whatis.techtarget.com defines viral content as “material, such as an article, an image, or a video that spreads rapidly online through a website.” Consequently, the value of a brand of viral content cannot be overstated. If you create content that goes viral with your client’s brand’s name on it, the client’s customer engagement and sales figures will increase exponentially.

Therefore, the question that must be asked and answered is how do you create content that goes viral and drives customer engagement, and ultimately increases revenue?

Amanda Wilks, in her article titled, “The psychology behind viral content,“ notes that viral content appeals to the emotions as well as the rational side of the brain. People respond to content with their emotions first. If it speaks to them, they will share it with their social circle. Consequently, as the quotation highlighted above by Ken Poirot states, the way to craft viral content is to first get in touch with your emotions and then to think about what profoundly affects you. Because what affects you will affect others.