The COVID19 pandemic has caused significant problems for businesses around the world as it has fundamentally altered customer purchasing behaviour. As a result, business processes are also going through a transformation and it is increasingly becoming essential for every business to adapt to these changes. As a local store owner, you may be facing challenges more than ever before in the wake of COVID19.

Traditionally the first thing which comes to your mind while running a local store is to get a physical walk-in into your store. You must have used various forms of outdoor advertisements and billboards and newspaper ads to promote your store. Although the offline mode of advertisements is historically trusted for generating leads, following this pandemic, you need to review and change your business strategies to stay afloat and grow.

During this crisis, it is also very important for you to think about the long term perspective of business and use this opportunity to build your digital presence. Remember digital marketing tactics have become crucial more than ever before in these moments of complexity and have been accelerating like never before. Eventually every business irrespective of its size needs to participate in digital initiatives and start investing on Google, Facebook, or Instagram.

You should try out digital marketing for the promotion of your local store as well. It is also very important to spend your time and money on a digital marketing plan that supports and prepares your company to meet potential challenges.

The essential reasons your local store needs digital marketing post-COVID 19

Irrespective of the presence of different media, digital marketing has got multiple benefits. Want to learn more reasons why you need to be present online post-COVID 19?

Read on to find out the top 7 reasons which justify your expansion for the online business. 

1. Be discoverable and reach out to your potential customers

Due to the ongoing crisis of COVID 19 digital media has become more convenient and accessible and people are using it extensively to search for anything at any time. Also, due to the social distancing norms, people are staying at home and being online most of the time. Since the majority of the people are online, many of the businesses will find their target customers in the digital space only. 

As a local business owner, you should take advantage of this situation. To improve your brand awareness, your business needs to be visible in front of potential customers. And the best way to accomplish this is by using digital media.

Having a digital presence no longer restricted to bigger companies, every business irrespective of its size needs to be active on it.  In fact, it is the local business that needs digital marketing more than ever before to start engaging with their customers and build communities around their business offerings. A strong presence in digital media will lead to more business for your company now as well as in the future.  

2. Quality leads at bulk quantity

As a business owner, your first priority should be the generation of revenue for your local business. There is no point in running an advertisement campaign without the generation of leads and subsequently sales.

Remember people no longer search for a local business using the yellow pages or telephone book. Even if for the smallest things, people are doing online searches. In case you are not having an online presence you are losing a large chunk of potential customers. Digital marketing enables you to reach your target customer, engage with them, share business updates with them, and provide the best customer service to them.

Digital marketing also helps you to reach your customers faster and efficiently which essentially generates more leads for your business. Also, since you will be using advanced filters for targeting, it is almost certain that the lead qualities will be better in the case of digital marketing. 

3.  Helps in attracting the customer towards your local store

In today’s world, the majority of people search online before going for any product or service. Not only that, but people also check out various online reviews before deciding in favour of any business. It has now become of paramount importance more than ever before to be present as well as grow your strength on digital media. A strong presence on digital media not only enables you to communicate with the existing customers but also helps you to attract an altogether new set of customers.

However, mere presence in the online space doesn’t do the job. In case you are having a presence in the online space, but finding out your competitor is easier than you then you may not get the desired output from your online campaign. 

Search engine optimization will help you to be ahead of your competition by ranking your name above your competition on any search engine.  However, being at the top spot on Google ranking is a complex job. You need the right mix of keywords, content, and technical aspects in place to make sure that your brand appears on top of searches against relevant keywords.

4. Cost-effective media

You might be using offline media for the promotion of your business pre-COVID 19 eras. However, for regular offline media, you need to spend a lot of money. It is not only the ad space but you need to spend money on design, printing, and materials as well. This eventually makes offline advertisements very expansive. As a local store owner, you might not want to spend a huge amount of money on the promotion of your business at this time of crisis. For all such cases, digital marketing is the ideal solution.

The cost of advertisement on digital media is pretty low. Also, digital marketing gives you a chance to run your advertisement only for the targeted people as it lets you filter your audience based on age, gender, location, and profession. So the average cost per conversion comes down in the case of digital marketing as there is no wastage of money. 

5.  Always accessible

It is very critical for local businesses to adapt their marketing and branding strategy to reach out to the right people at the right time. According to a recent survey by Google, 60% of smartphone users have contacted a local store directly using the click to call function. Because of which digital marketing has become essential for the survival and growth of local businesses. Social distancing may have created a problem for physical shopping but you need to connect with the customers in a new way.

Remember, people still need grocery items, pharmaceutical items, or home services. So the demand is still there. But the approach to reaching out to businesses has changed. That’s why digital marketing has become the most efficient way to make your business accessible. It lets your presence felt at any time and any location in front of potential customers.

In case you are having an online store, your customers can purchase your items at any time of the day from any location. So even if you have closed your physical location, your business will be still open for online customers.

6. Learn more about your potential customers

With digital marketing, you have the ability to know more about your customers. You can use different elements of digital media to get to know more about your customers and their preferred choices.

Blogs and social media can give you a chance to be in touch with your clients. You can create an online survey as well as to understand their preferred choice. However, you need to pay close attention to their response and pattern of answering to learn more about their choice.

You will learn about people and what they are searching for when you start communicating with them online. Once you understand the basic problem of potential customers, you can address their issues using your product.  Unlike traditional media, digital media is interactive and helps you to interact with your customer.

You can create a sustainable relationship with customers using digital marketing by communicating with them online. This helps you to differentiate yourself from all other businesses. There is a huge chance that the customer will buy from a seller with whom they have got a good experience in the past. 

7. Be competitive

Due to the social distancing norm owing to COVID 19 people will stay more at home. It is almost certain that they will be using the internet and online media to search for any product or service. Several businesses and brands are working aggressively to increase their efforts in digital marketing. They are using websites, social media, and search engines to spread their business. There is every chance that your competitor is offering a similar product to your customers using digital mode.

You need to keep abreast of the changes in the purchasing behaviour and need to make your presence felt while they search for your products or services online. By involving in digital marketing, you can explore the online space and remain competitive.

 Final thoughts

By now you must have understood the various benefits associated with digital marketing for local stores. While the future is still unknown, you need to adopt an efficient and responsive strategy for your business. A well-devised digital marketing strategy will help you to make timely and efficient communication about your business to potential customers. This essentially makes you visible to a wide range of customer bases and helps to create brand loyalty. Because of the changing time, people may have multiple questions about your business in their minds. It is better to address those as well as use digital media. 

The COVID 19 situations allow you to explore newer avenues for the growth of your business. Now is the time to learn about your customers, their behaviours, address their needs, and reach out to them using digital media. It’s also the right time to reflect on the latest marketing strategy. If you are using only offline marketing until now, it is the right time to incorporate digital marketing elements into it. In case you already incorporated digital marketing into your marketing strategy, then you should consider adopting a more innovative approach. You need to start analyzing your website using Google analytics, running paid ads on Facebook or Instagram, and creating strong brand awareness in the mind of the customer.

In case you want to build up a comprehensive digital marketing strategy, there are many competent professional service providers like SMON who can help you to make it a success.

SMON is having the most experienced team in the market that develops an end-to-end marketing strategy using which you can achieve the desired level of success in the online space. They will link you with a committed and professional marketing strategist who can develop the best business plan for your local store.

Remember, this is the right time to get ahead of your competitor by using an effective digital marketing strategy.