With various health agencies recently approving vaccines around the world, humanity and marketers can finally begin to see a light at the end of the tunnel.
However, just because COVID-19 (potentially) will be a thing of the past, it doesn’t mean that marketers can return to the same types of programs they ran before the pandemic.
How should marketers adjust their content marketing strategy?
Most marketers will have to make difficult adjustments in 2021 and beyond to deal with the “post-COVID-19 reality.” First and foremost, their strategy will need to change.
#1 – Marketing mix
Before COVID-19, many companies used a combination of online and offline marketing programs. From a strategic perspective, companies will need to maintain a larger percentage of their overall marketing budgets online.
#2 – Brand trust
Further, they’ll need to change how they go to market. Building brand trust will be more important than solely relying upon direct marketing customer acquisition. They’ll have to work much more tightly and in tandem with each other.
#3 – Margin compression
Another change that companies should be aware of is margin compression. They won’t be the only market shifting their budgets over to digital media. Everyone else is doing the same thing. As a result, there simply isn’t enough digital inventory to absorb all that demand. So, the price of media will continue to increase.
Let’s use an example of buying keywords on Google AdWords as part of your advertising strategy. Before the pandemic, they cost $5 per click. Now, you may see them at $6, $7 or $8 per click (and rising rapidly). That increase could very quickly overtake the ROI you achieved before the pandemic, making those channels no longer profitable.
Because of the margin compression and the increased demand for these marketing channels, you’ll have to adjust how you view your overall program.
Changing your marketing program from a funnel to a flywheel
Traditionally, marketers view their marketing program as a funnel. They put leads and opportunities at the top, nurture them and ultimately convert them to customers. But that viewpoint will need to change.
Try to look at your marketing program as more of a flywheel, a circle rather than a funnel. With this model, you still bring in new leads and nurture them so they become customers. The difference is that you’ll have a whole series of post-customer nurturing going on continually.
Also, you’re going to rely more heavily on referrals, positive reviews and testimonials. Those actions will lead to new opportunities in the form of leads or referrals from your customer base, which your marketing will need to constantly target.
Relying solely on customer acquisition as your primary growth channel is no longer something you can do exclusively. You’ll need to focus not just on new customer acquisition, but also on growing your existing customer base and mining those customers for other trusted opportunities.
You’ll have a higher chance at close rates too. When you do a great job servicing customers and the resulting referrals, you’ll be much more likely to close than if you simply go for cold, raw customer acquisition.
In summary
COVID-19 has dramatically changed the landscape for marketers. As such, you must adjust your budgets and expectations of how those budgets will perform. Most importantly, you’ll need to change your marketing mix and mentality about how you view your marketing programs (funnel versus flywheel).
If you make those adjustments early on, you’ll have an advantage over your competition and a much more holistic way of generating new revenue for your company.
Need help?
If you have a content marketing program or are planning one, download our e-book 100 Mistakes Businesses Make When Starting, Optimizing and Scaling Content Marketing Programs.
This e-book will walk you through the mistakes of hundreds of other companies and the challenges they faced in implementing their content marketing programs. To learn more about how Tempesta Media can help you streamline your content creation process and deliver quality content at scale, contact us today.
