While shopping holidays like Black Friday/Cyber Monday may look a little different this year, it doesn’t mean that you can’t utilize the months leading up to the infamous weekend to properly prepare your business to meet the demands of consumers during the pandemic. After all, this new normal has been great e-commerce business traffic and online conversions!

What impact has COVID-19 had on businesses? 

At the start of the shutdown, many small to large-scale businesses were forced to conduct mass layoffs and dig deep into their pockets due to their financial fragility. Since then, the economic impact of COVID-19 has only grown, leading to company closures as the take-up rates and fear of contracting the virus have kept consumers out of their stores and saving for a future rainy day. This major economic shock, even with the help of government aid, has devastated the retail sector, alongside arts and entertainment, personal services, food services, and hospitality. While it has been a few months since, remaining businesses are still feeling the aftermath amid this global crisis, and the uncertainty of when or if their operations will be able to return to the normalcy of pre-coronavirus is still unknown.  

What are the consumer’s expectations? 

While the famous saying, “business as usual”, is merely a form of marketing designed to assure customers that operations will be conducted the same as they always have, amid the pandemic, this marketing phrase has undergone some re-thinking to not strike the wrong tone with consumers. 

Right now, while purchasing products and services for personal use or gifting is still shoppers want, they also want a company that aligns with their current values. This means that prospective customers and returning shoppers expect you to regularly update your business procedures for upkeeping provincial/state regulations and maintain your communication with them by providing comforting words to encourage them that shopping can be continued safely. 

Are you doing your part but need the help of a professional digital marketing agency to do more? 

Here are some suggestions on what they can assist you with to meet your consumer’s expectations:

• Educate the public using brand authority. 
• Highlight more sales and ways to obtain discounted products. 
• Bring people together on your social channels to help bridge the gap that has been imposed through physical distancing. 

More shopping will be done online

Some big-box retailers like Wal-Mart, Kohls, and Target have already decided that they will remain closed this year during the annual shopping weekend with many more to follow as the greenlight for high-traffic, in-store shopping remains on hold. However, while you can’t bank on brick and mortar shops to shop the deals of Black Friday/Cyber Monday, you can be sure that online retailers will be stepping up their game to make this year’s shopping experience one to remember. 

If you’re the owner of an e-commerce business, here are some ways that you can reap the rewards of Black Friday and Cyber Monday amid the coronavirus pandemic. 

• Start building a cohesive search engine optimization strategy (SEO) to improve your search rankings. 
• Attract buyers by hyping up your sales event using company social channels.
• Run pay-per-click ads based on messaging that proved high-performance and appealed to your target audience in the past. 
• Send out a vibrant email to your subscription list to ensure that they know what type of promotion you will have and which item(s) and service(s) will be on sale. 

For those who need assistance getting off the ground and running or simply prefer the expertise for such an important e-commerce shopping weekend, it’s worth hiring a professional digital marketing agency to handle your online affairs and set the groundwork for some successful conversions. 

How does your brand plan to keep up with the new normal? Drop a comment below to share with other entrepreneurs.