It goes without saying that this has been an unprecedented year for your sales and marketing during COVID-19. As we’ve turned into a new year and a new chapter, we expect and hope to see a sense of normalcy resume in both our private and business lives.

One of the biggest strengths for a business is adaptability, and never has that been truer than during the COVID-19 pandemic. For thousands of us, businesses have been adversely affected by the ‘new normal’, but are you doing everything you can to ensure your business is still reaching your target audience? In this blog, we’ll talk through some of the sure-fire tactics you need to include in your 2021 marketing strategy, to find where your customers are, and to keep your brand ‘front of mind’ whilst marketing during covid.

Readjusting Your Sales and Marketing Approach

Consumer habits have changed since COVID-19 arrived. For instance, social media usage is understandably at an all-time high, whereas physical marketing collateral such as leaflets and even out-of-home billboard advertising have decreased in demand. Critically for direct marketing, the ability to call office phones has been severely impacted with many workers now choosing to work more flexibly from home, and therefore unable to be contacted via their office phone.

With this example in mind, it’s time to review your sales and marketing channels, and the budgets and time you are devoting to each. For many businesses, now is the time to shift your marketing strategy to a more digital focus for the foreseeable future.

One way businesses can look to pivot their sales and marketing strategy is by reaching their target audience through a new medium. Using animated video is a visually impactful way of targeting your audience and captivating their attention during these disconnected times, when more traditional sales methods are less effective.

Picture this example. Previously you had the advantage of attending an in-person pitch and building chemistry and understanding with a potential client. With these luxuries shelved for the short to medium term, having an extra trick up your sleeve in the form of an animation video can really be the X-factor to take your pitch and offering to the next level. It’s a great differentiator to play during a video conference call, bringing life to your product/service and is also an excellent point of difference to others opting for the more traditional slide deck or PDFs.

Website

With the nation staying safe at home, your website is a channel that will have remained relatively unchanged during COVID-19. We’ve seen a lot of businesses take this ‘downtime’ period to analyse their website from an aesthetic design point of view, which of course has its merits. However, are you also monitoring your website’s analytics to try and understand exactly how users are interacting with your site post COVID? If you haven’t, here are a couple of top-level metrics to review:

  • Average session duration:

    This will tell you exactly how long people are on your site for, on average. This allows you to see to what degree users are actually engaging with your site.

  • Bounce Rate:

    This is the percentage of users who visit a particular landing page on your site, who then navigate away from the site without engaging with any elements on that particular page.

Animation During COVID

Having a low average session duration and high bounce rate is bad for business. Simply put, you must grab the attention of someone as soon as they land on your site, because their time is precious. What’s a great way of accomplishing this? Video. What’s an even better way of accomplishing this? Animated video!

Both of these important metrics can be greatly improved with an animated video. A popular tactic within a video marketing strategy is to introduce an explainer video to your landing page. It’s a concise, effective way to explain how your business works, and can include points as diverse as explaining your company’s history, your internal processes or even just alleviating some FAQs for your customer support team. It’s pivotal that all explainer videos contain a tangible ‘call to action’ at the end of the video. This can be a phone number, website, or an invitation to check out another part of your website!

Social Video

COVID 19 has produced some difficulties, sure, but it’s also produced some unique opportunities for business as well. With your consumers at home, social media usage is at an all-time high, so it’s important not to leave some of your social media ‘digital footprint’ dormant for too long! It’s proven that video posts on social media are some of the most viewed content a company can produce. Just recently, we worked with premium beer brand Leffe to deliver a number of highly targeted and effectual social media posts as an essential part of their new lager “La Légère” campaign.

As well as our creative acumen, we also ensure that all social videos are properly optimised for that particular platform. Animation design is easier than live-action footage to mould between these different formats. From a 1:1 aspect ratio on Facebook to a 9:16 one on Instagram, we’ll have your project optimisation covered.

On top of that, the capabilities for paid social video ads are fantastic. They make for a much safer, COVID-proof investment for your 2021 marketing strategy, as opposed to the physical marketing channels that we mentioned above.

Now that you’re fully equipped to enhance your sales and marketing during COVID-19, keep checking back on our blog page. If you’d like more information on how to raise the profile of your brand, or advertise a product or service, get in touch and let’s chat!