The current coronavirus pandemic is causing customer trends and behaviors to evolve and change. People are spending increasingly more time at home and online. In fact, now is the perfect time to improve your customer engagement process because there’s been a 36% increase in consumers paying more attention to marketing messages. This marketing value increase applies to email, SMS, social ads, and more. With an increase in consumers paying attention to marketing messages, comes an increase in the need for these types of communications to be sent out. When people are busy at work all day, they’re less likely to open up and engage with emails and text messages coming from businesses. However, when people are home and spending more time online, they have more time to engage with businesses who contact them. 

Consumers are increasingly interested in what businesses are doing to adjust to the COVID-19 situation. People are reading emails to find out about safety precautions being taken by businesses, discounts on services and other updates to the company’s products and services. Marketers and businesses have seen an 18% increase in consumers signing up to receive marketing messages. Why? Because they want to stay involved and informed. 

Delivery companies and those that work mostly online are seeing a drastic increase in sales, as people don’t want to leave their homes. That doesn’t mean that other companies have to suffer though. There’s a big push for consumers to support small businesses and local businesses during this time. It’s no secret that when the economy is hurting, small businesses are often hurting right along with it. 

The current buying trends and behaviors of customers will have an impact on the future of sales and how businesses should market to their customers even after the pandemic has cleared up. According to Advantix Digital, “When making decisions on advertising campaigns, the two primary areas to consider are changing consumer behaviors and impacts on individual industries” It’s necessary for businesses to pay close attention to overall customer purchasing trends, as well as evolving behaviors in their specific industries. Things will look different for a plumber than they will for a medical office. That’s not a bad thing, it just means business owners need to strategize according to the current trends. 

For more insights on marketing strategy that actually works for small business, connect with Jay Bean, Founder of FreshLime and Small Business Marketing Expert on LinkedIn and Twitter. If any of these tips have helped you or if you have anything to add, please comment below. We’d love to hear from you!