COVID-19 and Digital Transformation: Key Things for Small Business

Key Points: COVID & Digital Transformation, Post-COVID Marketing

Digital Transformation was already at full steam before 2020.  Amazon was leading the way as a new king of retail utilizing Digital Marketplace.  There’s a reason why we started to use the word ‘Digital’ in front of ‘Marketing’, it’s because it’s all about Digital increasingly.  And businesses were already making changes to accommodate customers who wish to connect more digitally, especially from their phone.

Then COVID came.  After the initial shutdown period, once things were started to open back up, we were limited on what we were able to do.  Many successful retail, restaurants & coffee shops quickly developed online ordering systems and started to offer curbside pickup.  This was a huge change especially for industries that traditionally relied on customers walking in to make a purchase or dine-in.  In fact, many establishments with good location and popularity probably didn’t feel the need for Digital Transformation until COVID.

According to 2020 Cisco Study, digital transformation is not only a majority, 71% of businesses in the USA & Canada are already accelerating.

The same study also noted ‘In the next 18 months, small businesses report they are going to invest on remote work, online sales and developing a digital strategy’

 

This means, all those Digital Shopping, Curbside Pickup, and Delivery services are here to stay.  And it’s not hard to imagine why more and more customers will prefer a business that has digital capabilities because it makes their life easier.

 

Post-COVID Marketing

Almost all business success stories during COVID include Digital Transformation.  So how should you plan your Post-COVID marketing?  Here are few things that happened during COVID.

  • Many businesses closed and probably will never open
  • Businesses that rely on online did better
  • Overall spending in marketing decreased during COVID

In another word, you now have less competition but ones that were prepared or adopted quickly to Digital Transformation are ahead of you.  But thanks to fewer companies competing for marketing, doing Google Ads or SEO has become easier & cheaper.

 

This may be why you’re seeing many companies strengthening their online presence as we speak.  Because it cost much less than it used to to get a better position within a local search engine (including Google).  This trend probably won’t last too long, but if you ever heard seen a sign to start something, this would be it.

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