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The emergence of Covid-19 and society’s subsequent reaction to it have established new norms requiring a change in habits that we all have had to adapt to in real-time. The most impactful is social distancing which is one of the new norms forcing people to work, relax, and even shop from home. This new norm is universal, indiscriminately affecting everyone. 

Businesses have been forced to react to this new normal as well. Consumer behaviour has changed. Nielsen has put together 4 consumer behavior changes that businesses should adapt to in order to find opportunities during these trying times. 

1. People are spending much more time online

People in every generation have turned to digital technology, and there’s more of an increase among Gen X and Gen B (Baby Boomers). What do people do online? Entertainment, shopping, business, or learning? All of the above. These activities can be done online whether via social media platforms, websites, or applications. Many businesses have changed their marketing strategies to focus more on online whether advertising or offering online shopping channels. Some businesses apply virtual reality or AR such as cosmetics and fashion brands allowing users to virtually try on cosmetics or clothes without visiting the store.

An example is in China, the first country hit by COVID-19, where Shanghai Fashion Week was broadcast using AR technology. Many fashion brands and models joined the event through a virtual runway and live stream together with the features called “See Now, Buy Now” in partnership with Alibaba’s Tmall. This enabled audiences to pre-order the products and communicate with the brands in real-time, even when everyone was staying at home under the lockdown.

Some shops use Facebook Live for selling their products which audiences can CF (confirm) in the comment and then have delivered. Some companies do campaigns online such as Maybelline launching the campaign named #SUPERSTAYCHALLENGE via TikTok where people dance and the lip color will change. It’s very successful as many people engaged and not only females joined the campaign, but males also played.

Some brands can turn this circumstance into a new opportunity to reach a larger audience, gain sales, and increase brand awareness and engagement by utilizing the advantages of digital marketing technology.

2. Focus more on quality and security

When everyone spends less overall but pays more for necessary things, the quality and security of the products becomes the core concern before purchase. These refer to the quality of the product from production and packaging until delivery. 

This is especially relevant today with food delivery. Restaurants need to make sure that food is safely prepared and packaged, maintaining the appropriate temperature, texture and shape for as long as possible. Of course, the taste should be as delicious as if customers are eating at the restaurant. Food handling after it leaves the restaurant is of paramount importance. Customers will notice whether the delivery person is wearing a mask and gloves.

Strict QC processes are important, and if these haven’t been adapted to the current situation then now is as good a time as any to make sure they are. If companies can keep product quality consistent, plus offer security, they could gain sales and loyalty due to perceived trust. Customers are more likely to pay a higher price if the products or services can ensure quality and security.

3. Purchasing more local brands

The number of people buying local brands has increased by 70% with the spread of Covid-19. The reasons vary from logistics to trust, but many people are buying more local products because local brands know how to communicate better with their local audiences in a manner that allows them to appeal to their real local needs. So, it’s an opportunity for companies to adapt their marketing strategies as a response to the consumers’ immediate needs.

4. New business models

A business model gaining popularity is the subscription model. More and more products are offering subscription options to customers to make shopping for repetitive goods more convenient, think groceries. For a clearer picture applicable to Bangkok, imagine you are a local restaurant and you ask a gas shop to fill the gas tank every Sunday or if you are selling beverages such as milk tea or fresh juice, then you ask an ice shop to deliver ice to you every Friday. This model not only is suitable for grocery shops, but also to all consumer products. This can be a way to increase loyalty and sales generation in the long run as well. By applying this business model, you can forecast future income as well.

It is important to take this as an opportunity to step out of our comfort zones and approach things in a new way. Turning from offline to online, expanding service areas or delivery areas, improving quality of delivery, and making an impact through social media. It’s time to escalate business strategy and make use of digital marketing. It might be the key to determining whether or not your products and services will survive this hard time. The new norm is here for us to adapt and thrive.

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Social media is the name of the game for today’s marketing campaigns as it is the hub where brands or businesses can immediately see, share, and connect with potential customers from different parts of the world. Due to social media’s ubiquity, the influencing marketing arena is no longer limited to celebrities and has now moved onto digital influencers that saturate the online marketing landscape.

In many ways, collaborating with these dedicated bloggers and social media influencers are the best avenue for brands to reach people as they offer exposure and act as a bridge to solidify their connection with followers and to a broader demographic range. People tend to trust them more than they trust brands.

One of the biggest platforms that has been stealing the spotlight, especially now during the Covid-19 lockdowns, is TikTok (Douyin in China), a relative newcomer that began as a Musical.ly social media network that boomed in popularity for its user-friendly and fun lipsync videos. After it was acquired by Beijing-based ByteDance, the app became a short-form, video-sharing platform driven by a community of young and creative users from different parts of the globe.

How is TikTok the Next Big Thing for Brands?

In 2018, TikTok surpassed the one billion download mark all over the world, making it one of the most popular apps on Google Play and App Store. As of April 2020 there were over 800 million monthly active users worldwide, producing and consuming engaging content that caters to multiple demographics, from those interested in short comedy skits, dance videos, beauty, sports, food, fashion, and music.

The app is designed to produce quick and snackable bites of content that are highly stimulating, addictive, and ultimately entertaining for the younger generation. TikTok’s video selection garners an estimate of 17 billion monthly average views, while the time users spend on the app is at least 46 minutes per day. To that end, here are different ways your brand can incorporate TikTok into your social media marketing strategy:

1. TikTok for Sponsored Content

Sponsored content is arguably the most common and classic tactic of social media marketing for influencers in partnership with brands. This strategy allows your services or products to be shared to dedicated followers of the influencer, allowing your brand to be seen and stay afloat from the highly saturated market on the social market.

Influencers can create well-designed and planned content that highlights your service or product to promote your brand on TikTok using various stimulating visual content. To implement this, your company will first have to choose the best influencer that would suit the tone and style of your branding, while the influencer will need a set of guidelines, instructions, and requirements required for their content.

It’s essential to note that your choice of influencer is necessary as your brand’s voice should also compliment the influencer’s personality to create a post that is authentic for your consumers.

2. TikTok for Influencers to Host Competitions and Giveaways

If your brand is focused on building awareness and introducing your target market to your product or service, an influencer marketing campaign is one of the ideal ways to reach consumers as influencers can create competitions or giveaways that can promote your brand. This strategy is highly beneficial as consumers love receiving gifts, and giveaways from their favorite influencer.

This guarantees a high success rate and growth for your brand as the influencer can instantly gain followers, likes, shares, retweets, and comments. Followers will typically need to follow a guideline to join the competition, wherein they will have to use specific hashtags, and follow the influencer and your brand, which is a mutually beneficial way to gain more exposure for both parties.

3. TikTok as an Avenue to Share Discount Codes and Affiliate Marketing

If your strategy is focused on converting leads and driving sales, one powerful way to do it is to collaborate with an influencer to build a marketing strategy that is designed to prompt purchases.

This can be done by offering discounts to followers using a unique code for each of participating influencers included in the campaign, which they will need to share through their multiple social media accounts with a strong incentive to encourage followers to buy and ultimately drive sales to your brand.

With TikTok surging to the top of the social media game both inside and outside of China, now is the time to begin engaging with these millions of users. The fun app offers e-commerce options within China and various other offers outside of China to help reach and convert more users. If you are interested in learning more about TikTok, simply contact us using the form here.

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Recently, it was pointed out to me that our own digital agency needs to focus more on its own SEO. Not gonna lie, in making sure to maintain all of our client's digital marketing needs, sometimes we neglect our own. We are a B2B business, like many of our own clients, and we also need to consider where to invest a finite amount of resources, just like our clients do. In considering how and where to invest our resources for our own lead generation and business development, I looked to our past. Where have our clients with the highest budgets over the past 8 years come from, SEO or some other source? The answer is some other source, namely existing client referrals. In looking at the volume of leads we get from our website and the number of those leads that actually convert into new business, there is a wide gap. On our website we tend to get inquiries from companies looking to get prices but not yet ready to hire an agency. They seldom have a brief prepared and seldom have a budget in mind. However, when it comes to referrals, there is a much higher likelihood that we will convert the lead into new business. The referrals usually know exactly what they are looking for and have a budget in mind. So how do we get more referrals from our existing clients? We need to continue delivering the best creative and digital marketing services we can to our existing clients in Thailand, Hong Kong and Singapore.

Another source of leads for us with a high ROI has been investing in sponsoring conferences. Every year we will at least sponsor 1 conference outside of Thailand in order to gain exposure in more international markets (not sure if we'll get the chance this year). Most of the time this is in Hong Kong and Singapore, but we have also invested in China and the US in the past. The fees may seem high at a couple hundred thousand baht (a couple thousand USD) for sponsorship and speaking opportunity in one event, plus flight and accommodation, but the investment always pays off.

A third source that we haven't tried but it's been recommended to us is entering competitions for recognition, i.e. Campaign Asia. We have been told, and I can't verify this because we have not done it ourselves, but we have been told that many times you can win recognition just by paying the fees, investing in some of the marketing products in those competitions and submitting your work. It has been described to us as more an exercise of whether you can be organized enough to submit all the requirements on time, than a true judgment and competition. Again, this is not from direct knowledge. It does remain something in the back of our minds, not so much for business development, but to garner recognition for our team's hard work and recruit more awesome talent. Perhaps 2021 will be the year we enter to showcase the team's creativity in delivering quality creative digital content for our clients during this Covid-19 work from home situation.

All that being said, yes, SEO needs to be prioritized. Not only to attract new business, but also for the benefit of attracting new talent. Like we tell our clients though, SEO is not something a digital agency can do once and then just let it be. It requires regular work both onsite and offsite, from new content, new backlinks, quality backlnks, website updates based on Google's changing search algorithms, website structure and many other factors. Google itself has some pretty useful information for those of you interested in learning about SEO for your own websites or in wanting to become more informed before choosing an agency to help you.

Google SEO Resources:

1. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Starter Guide
2. Beginning users, do you need an SEO?
3. Webmaster Guidelines

I wrote this article to show that we, and I would say most digital marketing agencies, face the same challenges as our clients. We also look to invest our own marketing budgets in the best manner possible. We consider ROI. We look at performance over time. We change direction when we see something not working and we A/B test. For example, this article is a test between two types of content in our blog. We get lots of traffic from our blogs focused on specific platforms, i.e. WeChat, Facebook, so we want to see whether a more general digital marketing blog will attract more or less traffic to our site. Thanks for reading and I hope our honest experience can help you in your planning.