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<\/p>\nI\u2019m not writing this article to talk about whether the Coronavirus is being overblown or understated, I am certainly no politician! I\u2019m also not a doctor, so any advice I provide here is strictly from a business ownership perspective and through 15 years of experience in Digital Marketing. I\u2019ve also got family in Italy who are currently stuck in their home due to a city-wide lockdown in Sicily, so it helps to understand what the situation is like in an area affected worse than we are currently. They\u2019re \u201cahead of us\u201d.<\/p>\n
That said, the economic impacts of the Coronavirus in the United States are already occurring even if the number of cases isn\u2019t astronomically high yet. The fear has arrived, the stock market is feeling it, and consumers are clearly taking action.<\/p>\n
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Yes, there\u2019s a toilet paper joke in here. Did you expect anything less?!<\/em><\/p>\n Case in point; one of our clients (EarthTurns<\/a>) had hundreds of orders for hand sanitizer in a day and is heavily backordered. We\u2019ve also had many clients reach out to us already asking about the best way to handle their digital marketing spend during this time. Thus, I want to explain what I know, what I think is going to happen, and what you can do to protect your business from heavy profit losses during this downturn.<\/p>\n So far, we have a good idea about which industries are being hit the hardest. These include, but are not limited to:<\/p>\n In a nutshell, anything \u201coffline\u201d is being hurt directly by consumer driven behavior changes.<\/p>\n We also know that at the time of this writing there are around 1,500 diagnosed cases of Coronavirus<\/a> in the United States and this number is expected to climb extremely quickly. Many schools are preemptively closing<\/a>, Colleges are sending students home<\/a>, New York has a gathering ban<\/a>, and many conferences \/ concerts \/ etc. have also been cancelled. Even the NBA<\/a> & NHL<\/a> have suspended their seasons due to the virus.<\/p>\n People are going to be staying home more whether they\u2019re able to work from home, their company temporarily shuts down and they can\u2019t work, or their kids are home and they have no choice. We\u2019re entering a tough period here in the United States.<\/p>\n There\u2019s no telling exactly what\u2019s going to happen here, how long this virus is going to last, and exactly how much of an economic impact it is going to have. I want to focus again on the business perspective here though.<\/p>\n First, I think \u201coffline\u201d will continue to suffer for many months. The demand to fly an airplane isn\u2019t going to magically reappear until consumer confidence does, and even then, it will take some time during a transition period to get back to where we once were. Retail physical stores will be hurt I think worse than expected because of two reasons<\/p>\n On the positive side, my belief is that online<\/u><\/strong> sales will not be impacted as heavily as expected. It\u2019s possible that the decrease in overall consumer spending is going to be largely offset by the shift from offline to online. Time will tell. This brings me to what you should do as a business to protect your bottom line during this time.<\/p>\n Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!! Panic!!!!<\/em><\/p>\n There are three very different circumstances here that I think are important to differentiate. Under each, I\u2019m going to outline my opinion on what you should do with your digital marketing dollars.<\/p>\n You have an online business selling goods or services and are simply worried about overall consumer spending. Your digital marketing spend is going toward selling things online or driving leads to bring in customers where the service can still be fulfilled.<\/p>\n Do. Not. Overreact. In this instance, we highly recommend keeping your marketing spend going. Wait to see if your ROI or demand drops before making any knee-jerk reaction. We recently had a client come to us and ask us to drastically cut spend when they were achieving a 9:1 ROI \u2013 just out of fear<\/strong>. This is crazy! Why turn off profitable dollars that are still coming in, and when they may not even go away?<\/p>\n Because demand may drop, the one note here is that you may need to be realistic about your growth goals. While ROI may stay stable, demand overall may drop some. If you only grow 30% instead of 60%, be good to your digital marketing agency<\/a> \ud83d\ude09. In our experience thus far though, we even have some clients raising budgets because they\u2019re looking to capitalize on weakened competition!<\/p>\n Your demand is way down or conversion rates are heavily down, but you can still fulfill your service. Maybe you\u2019re a retail store that\u2019s still open or sell online goods where half the inventory is out of stock, but you can still fulfill the other half.<\/p>\n In this instance we recommend reacting quickly to conversion rates and business economics, but also getting creative<\/a>. While marketing is sometimes \u201cthe first to go\u201d, that type of thinking is typically not the best for your business. Make surgical, calculated cuts and shift dollars into areas where you can remain profitable during the tougher times. This is what the smart companies do; they lean into the areas they can, test out-of-the-box ideas, and squeeze every penny out of them to try and make up for losses in other areas of their businesses. This doesn\u2019t need to be an end-all-be-all marketing spend game, it should be far more data driven than that.<\/p>\n If you\u2019ve got a good ppc agency<\/a>, talk to them about it. They\u2019ll be sure to have an awesome plan for you on exactly how to handle it and will keep you aware of what\u2019s going on every step of the way.<\/p>\n You can\u2019t get inventory in the door, orders can\u2019t go out, your services can\u2019t be fulfilled. Maybe you own a restaurant that\u2019s closed, or an online store that can\u2019t get inventory.<\/p>\n In this circumstance, we recommend cutting everything except branded spend (to communicate that you\u2019re down and WILL BE BACK) and focusing on your SEO plan<\/a> and other tactics that can bear long-term fruit (you can\u2019t \u201cpull down\u201d SEO spend anyway). This is an opportunity – you can still work on your website and improve your rankings, such that when things return to normal, you return on top of your competition<\/strong>. \ud83d\udcaa Remember, you can always allow the ability to take backorders on your website, or future bookings with refund ability to try and get some of that cash flow in the door during the blackout period!<\/p>\n It would be a shame not to mention the classic story of Post vs. Kellogg. In the 1920\u2019s, Post was the king of cereal and when the economic depression arrived, Post cut their advertising spend while Kellogg wisely left theirs running. When the better times came (as they will), guess who came out on top?<\/p>\nWhat Do We Know?<\/strong><\/h2>\n
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What Do We Think is Going to Happen?<\/strong><\/h2>\n
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What Can We Do?<\/strong><\/h2>\n
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<\/p>\nSituation #1 \u2013 Your Business Can Still Operate No Problem<\/em><\/strong><\/h3>\n
Situation #2 \u2013 Your Business is Heavily Impacted but Can Still Operate<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Situation #3 \u2013 Your Business Can Not Operate<\/strong><\/h3>\n
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