A business that makes money through the corona crisis, will do it online. If you are a small business owner who is reading this and have yet to expand your business online, now wouldn’t be the worst time to think about doing so. In the last month, internet traffic in Italy has grown by over 30% overall with some sectors seeing over a 60% increase. Spain has seen its WhatsApp usage and online gaming traffic surged by seven-fold and three-fold respectively. In a bid to stem the overwhelming flow of online activity, Netflix is even making the decision to slash traffic by up to 25% to help relieve the strain being caused to internet service providers. Utilising these resources will prove to be the only way a business will survive the corona crisis.
Stay-at-home measures making people spend more time online
With people beginning to embrace the changing social landscaping and having no choice but to live online, businesses must make the decision to direct their primary form of marketing there. Previously, physical marketing was one of the leading ways to reach people, with billboards in Times Square and Los Angeles going for up to $20,000 and $15,000 a month respectively. Since the new advice regarding social distancing and the stay-at-home measures that are being put in place, we have seen congestion in New York decreased by 47% and LA’s saw a reduction of 51%. If we look at China, where their strict lockdown policies are slowly lifted, their road traffic is still down by 50%.
Adults are working from home or not at all and have a lot of free time on their hands. Children are no longer in school and either learning online or on their PlayStation’s. The time people would have otherwise spent meeting friends, going for dinner or the gym is now being replaced with browsing social media, YouTube or other online channels not knowing what to fill their time with. In the last few years, Facebook had been experiencing a gradual decrease in engagement, but since the beginning of the corona crisis, millions of people have been rediscovering the social media site for far longer than the average times before. In the United States, Facebook traffic has increased by 50% from one week to the next.
Social platforms keep gaining popularity
If your businesses had been considering starting a digital marketing campaign in the last few years but could not find the perfect time or reason to, then now is not only the best time to, but it may be a key consideration for all businesses in this current battle. With loneliness from self-isolation swallowing people’s lives, public gatherings banned, many people are turning to Facebook’s main instant messaging platform, Messenger, to contact their friends and fill that social void that COVID-19 has created in society. Since last week, Messenger has seen an influx of users and witnesses an increase of 70% more video-calls.
Facebook Ads is a growing industry and the ad space is becoming more and more saturated as more and more companies begin to realise its potential. With the challenges modern businesses are currently facing due to coronavirus, many are being forced to turn to these channels to continue to operate. However, as coronavirus keeps spreading and physical marketing channels get thrown to the wayside the window to utilise this opportunity gets ever so smaller. This is why, for a small or medium-sized business, the time to act is now and step foot onto the digital front or fear being left behind by their more proactive competition.
It is not just on Facebook, but on other online channels, whereby Ads potential is also massive: such as Google, Bing or Twitter, where Xanda has enjoyed years of success, strategising campaigns with Ads usage at those most relevant times.
If you want to discuss a paid Ads campaign, and how we can potentially help your business survive the Corona crisis, please don’t hesitate to get in touch now.