For the past few months, the very contagious and possibly fatal COVID-19 virus has been spreading rapidly. Currently, it has infected millions of people worldwide and caused hundreds and thousands of deaths. The situation is so grave that many countries have been on strict lockdown for more than a month now. This is because there is no cure available for the virus as of yet.
And while scientists and doctors are proceeding quickly to invest in a cure or vaccine, experts believe that this virus is not going away anytime soon. Meanwhile, medical companies and advertisers are even going as far as to opt for digital signage solutions to educate the masses about the dangers of the virus and how to prevent getting infected.
To make matters worse, due to the lockdown, businesses have been forced to make their employees work from home. Likewise, stores have been cornered to sell their goods online. The spread of COVID-19 is now forcing many businesses to rely entirely on online services, as they have little next to no hope for their businesses returning to the same booming delight of customers at their workplace.
Due to this, the digital world is the last hope for people to achieve normality in their lives. From education institutes to office meetings, everything is now possible from the convenience of their home. Although it may not be the same, the digital world is benefiting us in ways we never thought it would. These ways are described as follows:
Solution for Many Businesses
Many industries are shifting their businesses to the digital world. Workers are working remotely from their homes, students are learning online and the transfer of cash via banks has increased drastically. While some businesses have come up with strategies to prevent any hard times, a lot of businesses are still suffering from losses. The blow is especially heavy on the travel industry.
They are suffering from huge losses and the estimation suggests that it would require a long time before they can get back on their feet. The staff of the travel industry has been requested to take unpaid leave for weeks and unemployment rates have skyrocketed.
Attributing to the digital era, many people are initiating entrepreneurship programs online to make the most out of the lockdown. No one can afford to lose their jobs and for them to make ends meet; they must find a way to support themselves and their families.
Some businesses that can operate just as efficiently as before with their workers working from home are succeeding in fighting the worldwide economic crises. The digitalization of businesses can be a saviour for the country’s drowning economy as other enterprises find ways to bring life back to their business.
Online Stores and Digital Exploitation
This is one of the dark sides of the digitalized world. At the initial stage of the spread of the pandemic, people were already panicking. Due to this, a lot of people crowded utility stores and grocery markets to panic buy products they considered necessary.
The products primarily include hand sanitizers, facemasks, toilet papers, etc. Stores are running short on countless products and the demand and supply ratio is incredibly disproportionate. However, online stores can fix this issue. Not only are online stores able to control the purchase of necessary utilities but also provide efficient customer service according to their concerns.
While this may be the case, some sellers are taking advantage of the situation and profiting from their needy customers by selling the products at high rates. It is said that marketers with little next to no ethical worth are buying basic products at cheap prices and selling them online at 10-50 times higher than the original rates. These products are basic utilities for people that are extremely necessary to have for daily living. These items include medicine, basic food supplies, and sanitary items.
Mixed Traffic Growth
Some industries are losing money and organic traffic as their conversion rates go down. Meanwhile, other industries are seeing that the traffic growth of their enterprise has skyrocketed. The reason for this is at these uncertain times, the public’s priorities have changed radically.
Food, health care, financial space, the news industry, etc. have secure financing. Other industries that supply luxury goods, the travel industry, real estate, etc. do not seem to be having any luck meeting with the balanced supply and demand ratio.
The digital market highly depends on the demand of the public. E-commerce is a mixture of all enterprises and the sales go up and down depending on what the sites sell. There is little consistency in digital marketing as the demands of people keep changing.
Because of the coronavirus, people’s personal preference revolves around necessities as everyone’s concern, for now, is survival. To survive luxury goods would not benefit them as much as regular groceries would, which makes sense of their preferences.
Likewise, the conversion rates fluctuate accordingly. People would not want to miss out on the latest news as a lot is going on in the world as of now. The media sites are witnessing a huge conversion rise and so are other industries like pharma and healthcare. These uncertain times have turned the world upside down for a lot of people and the best they can do about it is to devote more time to digital marketing to save their drowning businesses.
Less Competition
Many companies may be turning to digitalize their brands; however, this does not mean that the competition for your brand will become tougher. Chances are that your competition will get easier. The pay-per-click (PPC) and cost-per-click (CPC) rates have been reduced, which gives you a good reason to invest in digital marketing.
Not all brands choose to digitalise their brand, and many of their messages fail to reach their potential customers.
The lockdown gives your enterprise a great chance to get back on its feet by making the most out of the digital market. Your business can employ several strategies to promote your brand. For instance, the change in SEO has benefited many companies worldwide.
Search engine optimization (SEO) optimizes your website and gives it a ranking according to how optimized your content is. During the lockdown, the searches for travel-related keywords have gone down. Instead, people are using searches that revolve around the virus, basic utilities, and hobbies. By including these keywords, your business stands a great chance of beating your competitor’s website rankings.
Digitalized Interactions
People who invested in conferencing apps before the start of the pandemic are proud of this decision. From schools to business enterprises, everyone is carrying about their work through video calls or voice calls. Conferencing apps are becoming increasingly popular as people are hosting meetings and classes on virtual platforms.
Using conferencing apps may or may not be as efficient as live meetings. However, without it, it would have been incredibly difficult for humanity to go about their routine activities as they used to before the lockdown. The digital world has given us a chance to attain normality in our lives despite the uncertain times.
Control Supply-Demand of Goods
When people began stockpiling the basic goods, markets started running short on them. Because of the decreased availability of goods, prices have skyrocketed. Many people are unable to afford these items and are forced to live without them. Retailers are going online to control the supply of the products while meeting their client’s primary concerns. The manufacturing of goods has also gone down which is not great as retailers strive to satisfy their customers.
Retailers have introduced online services to deliver groceries to their customer’s doorsteps. To avoid stock buying of products the retailers have put a limit to the number of products they can purchase at a time. This helps in controlling the supply and demand of the products while ensuring satisfaction from all customers. The prices of products are also controlled so that people with low incomes do not have to go through any monetary issues.
Conclusion
The pandemic has forced a lot of businesses to shift their businesses online. Regardless of their personal preference, they have no other option. The virus is extremely contagious and the government has announced people to practice social distancing as much as possible. People are restricted to the confines of their homes and cannot go about their routine that used to revolve around the outside world. The digital future is at our doorstep and everything appears to take a 180-degree turn.
Professionals suggested a lot of things that the future holds including a much-digitalized era. The future is here and from schools to businesses, everything is going about with more or less the same normalcy through digital means. Digital transformation is the only option and last hope for the saviour of the falling economies, education, culture, and mental states. In today’s grim situation, the digital era has come as economic salvation, and we must take advantage of it.