It’s been more than two months now since the COVID-19 started to disrupt our lives upside down. From having to exercise social distancing and getting used to the lockdown life to constantly sanitizing our hands and seeing our friends and loved ones getting sick, the COVID-19 pandemic is something none of us expected. Even the COVID-19 pandemic seems like a titanic threat to businesses and jobs. The results are devastating. But, digital marketing may take a great leap frontward with rich opportunities as a result of COVID-19 lockdowns because we can see vigorous growth in digital marketing amid COVID-19.

With the growth of remote working and a collective approach amid this COVID-19 situation, businesses are strategically going to approach the transformation to digital marketing to ensure their business survival and stability during Coronavirus pandemic. Now, In this digital era, most of the consumers trust the word of mouth on digital media and search engine rankings over other forms of advertisements. Besides, during this lockdown situation, digital marketing lets businesses to channelize their marketing campaigns, build lasting relationships with customers, reach the right audience and optimize their own online branding.

However, some industries show a remarkably higher ROI and survival rate with digital marketing than other industries. Here are some of the top industries that benefit most from digital marketing amid COVID-19 situation.

1) Health Industry

Remember, how many times you have or someone you know searched online resources to find information about COVID-19 or other health conditions? Most of us look at online medicine portals and organizations like WHO and WebMD to find essential health information. Now, with the COVID-19 lockdowns, people can’t go to hospitals for their regular health checkups or other clinical treatments, so, they seek for online medical consultants to get their medical solutions and looking for pharmacies that provide home delivery.

There’s no denying that it becomes so critical for medical professionals and healthcare centres to make themselves available on the internet. And to start of medical professionals and healthcare centres need decent websites coupled with online networking. When it comes to online networking, digital marketing is the perfect option for it. Just by using simple content marketing tactics like infographics and informative articles on their websites, medical professionals can acquire more patients and easily grow their ROI with digital marketing amid COVID-19.

2) Food & Beverage Industry

Even though governments close all the restaurants and bars to slow down the spread of Coronavirus, We can see the real spike on home delivery and takeaway services. Now customers are likely to use search engines or use evaluation websites for reviews and order their meals on apps. Therefore, Google also introduced new takeaway and delivery labels under restaurants in Google Search and Maps results to help the people amid the COVID-19 lockdowns. People also use social media to make their final buying decisions.

So, at present, food industries can do their food marking on digital media by using digital marketing methods like search engine marketing, PPC advertising, social media marketing and content marketing. Actually, food marketing on the internet really builds on the emotional connection that we have with food and people at large feel that digital media actually care about their eating preferences. Hence, opting digital marketing amid COVID-19 is the best choice for food & beverage industries to generate revenue for their continues running.

3) Financial Consultants

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused an unprecedented financial crisis for businesses around the globe. At this point, businesses are seeking advice from financial consultants to stabilize their businesses. So, during this COVID-19 lockdowns, financial consultants can leverage digital marketing to get more clients for them. As we can see business owners and companies seeking their financial advisers online. Therefore, by promoting themselves online through email marketing, social media marketing and publishing their expertise knowledge via content marketing, financial consultants can get more exposure for themselves which can help them to attract more clients.

Financial consultants can use the platforms like Zoom to offer their financial advice through online for the clients. Altogether with the right online marketing strategy, financial consultants can horn their business with digital marketing amid COVID-19.

4) Fitness & Nutrition Industry

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the growing consciousness of holistic health has funded to enhancing the fitness and nutrition industry’s revenue. Now, people are searching for more fitness and nutrition-related content on the internet. Even the fitness experts and the nutritionists become more active on social media channels like Instagram, YouTube and Facebook. And they are publishing highly engaging and actionable content on social media channels that their followers and subscribers can always get value from.

By providing the fitness and nutrition-related content in different forms like infographics, demographics, videos, etc that are specially focusing on home workouts and diet plans, fitness and nutrition industries can grow their ROI without much efforts. Hence, digital marketing is a great way for the fitness and nutrition industries to advertising the ethics they give to their ideal audience. And through digital marketing, they can ensure their business stability with digital marketing amid COVID-19 crises.

5) Education & Training Industry

Most schools, colleges and universities are close down amid COVID-19 lockdown and now students are opting for online education and training. There are plenty of online mediums that now enable educators, tutors, teachers, students, schools, universities and institutions to interact directly with one another for their education and training purposes. In particular, schools, universities, institutions and individual tutors are using digital media and social media for their promotion to drive international students’ admission which is extremely profitable for them.

The truth is that the education and training industry is one of the most popular industries that benefit most from digital marketing. Social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram let students, instructors, educators, tutors, trainers, schools, universities, institutions and consultants to interact with each other in ways that are comfortable to do education and training in a virtual atmosphere. Schools, colleges, institutions and universities have maxed the utilization of digital marketing amid COVID-19 in their education and training process.

6) News Media

News media is clearly driving the growth during the COVId-19 pandemic. As of now, people are becoming keener to learn about the news related to COVID-19 pandemic, so, the viewership for news media increasing rapidly. Not only that, now people are isolated from the world and staying at their homes, so, amid this time news is the only way for them to know what’s happening around the world. Thus people become more reliable on news channels.

Considering the current scenario, news media can use digital marketing ways to reach more audience. Because nowadays people are spending more time online, so, that’s the best place to reach them. By creating social media pages for their news channels and regularly publishing the trending news on those social media pages, news channels can get more exposure and viewership for them. Not only social media marketing, but, news media also use content marketing methods like publishing news articles and videos to reach their audience online. In nutshell, News media can boom in their industry by using digital marketing amid this COVID-19 pandemic.

7) Hosting Industry

Amid the COVID-19 crisis, many businesses want to make their businesses online to ensure their stability and long term survival. Basically, when we think about online the first thing that pops up in our mind is a business website. And to create a website we need a hosting provider, right? Therefore, the present time is a boon for the hosting industry and many corporate businesses are searching for a good hosting service provider for their businesses.

To leverage more of these opportunities hosting industries can opt digital marketing. As digital marketing helps them to build their brand awareness, reach more leads and get more sales for their hosting services. We all know that amid this lockdown time people are spending more time online. Therefore, digital marketing is the perfect way to reach potential customers online. Altogether digital marketing amid COVID-19 gives the right exposure to the hosting industry.

8) Entertainment Industry

Even before the COVID-19 crisis, the entertainment industry has understood that digital marketing and social media can build their audience and it can help to utilize their upcoming content to showcase and make it become viral on the internet. For instance, if I would ask you about the latest movie trailer, what would you do? Simple, you will search on YouTube or go to a social media channel that related to the movie to find the latest trailer. This is because the entertainment industry using digital media to make their content reach to their audience and that content become viral like a grapevine.

During the lockdowns times, people are looking for online movies, web series and other forms of entertainments through online. Even we can see lots of new online communities of movies and songs lovers are popping up. So, at present, using digital marketing will generate higher ROI for the entertainment industry than other conventional media.

9) Online Betting & Gambling Industry

COVID-19 has shaken up the betting industry as well. Even the biggest sports betting brands in the world have suffered online and offline from the wide-scale cancellation, suspension or postponement of major sporting events during the pandemic lockdown. As far as the online gambling industry is concerned, gambling can be enjoyed safely from home via a computer or mobile, whether a person is self-isolating or in full quarantine. But, despite this fact, online gambling continues to find it a challenge to make the most of the internet because they are interconnected with real-time physical sports events, thus now betting and gambling industries are shifting their focus on eSports to ensure their business survival.

Amid this focus shift, online betting & gambling industries need the help of digital marketing and social media promotions to attract the audience to their new business approach. As digital marketing methods help them to reach their target audience faster and effectively. That’s why many online betting and gambling industries opting digital marketing to ensure their long term survival amid COVID-19.

On the other hand, online casinos took a good spike during the COVID-19 lockdown because they don’t depend on sports events to carry on with their business as usual. So, during this situation, online casinos can use digital marketing approaches to target the new audience and expand their business further. Nowadays we can find more people online, so, by using the right digital marketing strategy online casinos can expand their business to new heights.

10) Online Dating Industry

Amid the pandemic lockdown, online affairs are the safest choice for people who seek a distraction from their routine life. With people cooped up indoors amid the COVID-19, online dating sites use this time as an opportunity to help people find more connections through their dating sites by providing them with new features.

Given social distancing requirements that allow only virtual dates, many dating sites have expanded their distance filters to allow users to match with anyone in their country. In this scenario, digital marketing can help online dating sites to flourish their business. With digital marketing approaches and social media promotions, online dating sites can improve their exposure to get connected with new users. Simply using digital marketing amid COVID-19 can help online dating sites to get the full advantage of COVID-19 lockdowns for their business growth.

11) Law Industry

You may find it a bit of surprise, but, trust me the law industry is slaying it when it comes to digital marketing. Attorneys are intelligent individuals who specialize in communication. Specifically, they’re really good at elucidating how the law works and how to finesse your way over an argument. Most of the Attorneys are having their own website for their law firms where they are publishing helpful blog posts on specific legal topics, people find them and read them, and the Attorneys gain clients as a result, and even they have a specific content marketing strategy for their law-related writeups.

Amid the current lockdown situation, some of the countries around the globe are running their court activities and case hearing processes via online, even recently, Sri Lanka has conducted its first-ever court session via video conferencing. So, during these times having online presence help attorneys and law firms to gain more clients. A good strategy of digital marketing amid COVID-19 provides a robust ROI for law firms without much financial investments.

12) Real Estate Industry

The real estate industry always has its market, it’s never tires down. And it’s growing even bigger amid the COVID-19 pandemic. This is because of the rural-to-urban invasion of people going to rise further up as people want to stay in urban parts to get better healthcare services and other facilities. Hence, Brokers, property dealers, and engineers discover a variety of digital marketing channels to showcase their properties to their potential prospects.

In most places across the globe, digital marketing seems to be more cost-effective for real estate marketers than the traditional ways of marketing. It typically started with real estate marketers advertising and promoting their properties on Facebook. Even though Facebook continues to be an extremely feasible mode of marketing for real estate marketers now they are opting for other social media channels and digital marketing amid COVID-19 to gain more sales opportunities.

Closing Remarks

Digital marketing is one of the top game-changers amid the COVID-19 pandemic that connecting customers to top businesses and brands. Digital marketing also helps industries to measure and optimize the performance of their marketing campaigns during this uncertain situation. The above mentioned 10 industries have the potential to see high ROI from their digital marketing campaigns during COVID-19 and stabilize their survival. If you too wish to create an online presence of your business and want to become one of the industries that benefit most from digital marketing, it’s the right time to make positive efforts in your digital marketing strategy.

ROI of your business relies on how you build and execute your business strategy. So, analyze and evaluate how your business can gain more profit from digital marketing during this COVID-19 situation and based on your analysis create your digital marketing plan and most importantly stay focused on your digital marketing plans to reap the full benefits.

If you are a newbie to digital marketing or need further assistance in digital marketing contact here: [email protected]

The present quarantine lifestyle due to the COVID-19 pandemic has changed the shopping practices of consumers and many businesses are creating and strengthening their digital presence to reach their customers online. Amid these developments, Facebook has launched a new tool named “Facebook Shops” to make online shopping seamless.

Facebook Shop is set out to inspire people to shop and make buying and selling online easier with a ‘social-first shopping experience. Let’s have a look into how this Facebook Shops tool works and how it’s going to affect different members in the Shopify ecosystem.

1. Facebook Shops: Helping Businesses Sell Online

First, let’s have an intro about Facebook Shops!

Facebook Shop is a mobile-first shopping experience where businesses can easily create an online store on Facebook for free and build their Facebook marketplace. If you have a business page on Facebook, you can add a Facebook Shop on your Facebook business page. You can use this Facebook Shop section to list your selling products and connect with more customers on Facebook.

While any businesses can create a Facebook shop for their business, It best serves eCommerce advertisers, merchants, and retailers. Especially it recommended for businesses selling clothing, accessories, baby & children’s products and home furnishings items. But other businesses also use Facebook shops to reach more customers on Facebook. To have your Facebook Shop you must sell physical items and agree with Facebook Merchant Terms.

Key Features of Facebook Shops

• You can turn your Facebook and Instagram page into the online store
• You can easily import your Shopify product catalog into Facebook Shop.
• It’s easier to communicate and keep your marketing and sales activities aligned with a consistent experience across Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Messenger.
• Facebook Shop is built into the social media platforms so shoppers don’t have to navigate away from Facebook or Instagram to complete their purchase.
• Shoppers can enjoy secure and private shopping.
• Shoppers can swipe up from a story featuring a product to place their order directly on Facebook Shop.
• Shopping tab available on Instagram, so, shoppers can check out different products available within different categories.
• Shoppers can shop directly through live video.
• Merchants can add their product collections, discounts, and more to enrich their sales through Facebook Shops.
• Shoppers will be able to see their earned rewards, what they used, etc on Facebook Shops.
• Shoppers can wishlist a product on Facebook Shop just like they save posts on Facebook.
• Facebook Shop will be equipped with AI, so, shoppers will be shown items based on their preferences.
• Using Augmented Reality (AR) shoppers can test our products and see how they would like it on them.
• Already available features like Marketplace on Facebook and product tags on Instagram will be added to the Facebook Shop.

2. How Facebook Shops Benefits Merchants

If you’re a merchant, Facebook Shop is an easy way for you to create a customised digital storefront for your business across Facebook and Instagram. You can build your Facebook shop from your existing Facebook Page or Instagram profile.

Facebook Shop is simple to set up, seamless to use, load faster on mobiles and have global scale, so, they give you the ability to inspire your customers and help them to find the right products very easily.

The new Facebook Shops will give the entire shopping experience on Facebook or Instagram. With such an integrated shopping experience, you can reach your audience even better and you’ll be able to tap into the new audience for your business.

Now, your marketing efforts will be much easier, as you can promote your new products instantly and urge your shoppers to purchase them. This seamless integration between your marketing and sales will help you to increase your sales and conversions.

We all know Facebook and Instagram have a huge audience base which is helpful for merchants who want to increase their visibility and brand awareness, especially for small businesses who are still trying to make their mark on the market to attract the audience.

Facebook Shop will also help offline retailers to make their stores online. If they would already have a social media presence, by using the Facebook shops feature they can tap into their social audience to buy their products within Facebook.

For new merchants, Facebook Shops will make it easier to launch their new eCommerce business and start selling. Facebook Shops also allow advertisements through Facebook feed posts and stories, so, new merchants can improve their brand awareness through ads that directly lead the audience to their products.

Facebook Shops will help you to align your communication with your consumers. Since they’re already following you on Facebook and Instagram, you can deliver them instant information about your store such as changes in-store pickup time, delivery delays, etc. Also, customers can message your Facebook Page Shop with questions.

Merchants can see views, clicks and purchases for each of your product and also organise your products into different categories so that your customers can browse your Facebook Shop by category.

3. Facebook Shops Impacts on App Developers

Facebook Shop feature sure has its impact on all the partners in the Shopify ecosystem, so, App Developers are no exception.

In nutshells, app developers need to find ways to provide their functionalities within Facebook Shops. Therefore, developers may need to rework their product functionality or adapt to the existing features to work with Facebook Shops.

Shopify apps that are providing functionalities on Facebook and Instagram need to be more vigilant about any new developments so that they can easily adapt their app for the changes. It’s always good to plan ahead.

Facebook Shop will also provide fresh opportunities for app developers to build new apps. So, it’s time for cheers! Once the feature is rolled out fully, merchants will need app developers to help to set up the Facebook Shops for their eCommerce business. Therefore, it’s a good opportunity for the app developers who are already providing Facebook and Instagram related functionalities to hone up their career.

Besides app development, app developers can create helpful content about the different use cases of the Facebook Shop that will help merchants to learn more about Facebook Shops features. By creating content, app developers can get rank with keywords which help them to appear in search results when merchants searching for app developers.

4. Cost for Setting Up a Facebook Shop

You can set up a Facebook Shop for free. But, merchants will be charged a small transaction amount on each purchase made through the Facebook Shops enabled sales channel.

According to Facebook’s Vice President of Ads, Dan Levy statement, “Face will charge ‘small fees’ on each purchase, however, the real monetization will come from driving more advertising as Facebook Shops will be featured in Facebook ads and stories.

 

5. How to Make Your Shopify Store Ready for Facebook Shops

Facebook joined with partners like Shopify, WooCommerce, BigCommerce, CedCommerce, Cafe24, ChannelAdvisor, Feedonomics and Tienda Nube to give small businesses the support they need through its Facebook Shops feature. Hence, Facebook Shops offer powerful tools to help entrepreneurs, merchants, retailers and eCommerce owners run their businesses online.

Wondering how to set up a Facebook shop? Setting up your Facebook Shop is not that complicated, you can easily turn your social media pages into storefronts. All you need to create your Facebook Shops:

• You must sell physical items
• Agree with Facebook Merchant Terms
• Add the Facebook sales channel on your Shopify store
• Add your products catalog and connect it with your account
• Enable the ‘Shop’ page on your Facebook Page

You can get to know more details about how Shopify merchants can enable the Facebook Shops feature on the Shopify blog. It will help you to learn about the Facebook store Shopify.

Revolving Online Shopping Experience with Facebook Shops

The Social-first shopping experience of Facebook Shop is sure going to change the way of consumers’ shopping behaviours and the way merchants sell their products online!

I hope this article helped you to get an idea about Facebook Shops, also empathized with the need to prepare your business and online store for this new feature to adapt your business accordingly for the revolving online shopping.

I’ll update this post once the Facebook Shops feature is fully rolled out. In the meantime, if you have any questions about Facebook Shops, Leave them in the comments. I’ll get back to you with the answers!

More Resources to Learn about Facebook Shops

If you like to know more information about Facebook Shops, here are some resources for you. These articles will help you to get a better understanding of the Facebook Shops feature and its scope:

• Introducing Facebook Shops for Small Businesses 
• Mark Zuckerberg’s Words on Facebook Shop
• AI Implementation on Facebook Shop