Covid – 19, the greatest pandemic of the century, has captured the global spotlight and has generated a sense of uncertainty among the people and the industries alike. It has just not affected the global economy but has also shut down a lot of businesses. The light at the end of the tunnel seemed to get dimmer over time.

With every adverse situation, there is always a great opportunity and that are presents in one or the other form. During this Covid – 19 pandemic situation (Corona), content marketing has captured the global spotlight for today’s brands and has become the leader.

With the change in the global economy, companies have turned to Digital Marketing to survive the Corona pandemic in the coming months. However, most businesses will be dependent on their digital strategy than ever and it will be the deciding factor for the current and the future status of the business.

Problem faced during Covid – 19 Epidemic

B2B companies are primarily dependent on their annual circuit of trade shows and exhibitions to grow their network and build their relations with prospects, stronger.

Other industries that are not so digital-native and are less sophisticated in digital growth faced challenges in customer engagement and relationship-building strategies.

Major difficulties were faced by the smaller businesses who faced huge losses as they used to get their new customers either through reference or word-of-mouth or on the strength of a hard-won reputation.

Not only the small and medium companies faced challenges, but the larger companies did also faced huge potential loss of millions through canceled events (seminars, tradeshows, conferences, and so on).

But these big shots pulled back the hours and decided to reconsider the marketing budget for the year by reassigning a huge amount for Digital Marketing.

Moreover, the inactive social media companies have not started to focus more on social marketing, content marketing, SEO, and influencer-led campaigns to cover up their losses.

Of course, this means there are opportunities out there for content marketers and SEO agencies in the market to adapt to the new digital marketing paradigm shift.

Things Content Marketers need to focus during the crisis

Taking a fresh look at the adjusted business goals: Changed content marketing strategy is important according to the needs and wants of the audiences.

The brand communication and the medium need to be altered to meet the new business expectations along with that of prospective customers. Honestly, there is a lack of resources in the market, and everyone needs to deal with fewer resources and make tough decisions to make efficient use of time which leaves with a situation when a fresh look is needed to address the question of why the project was planned.

Focussing true believers: In a global economic crisis like Covid – 19, it is best to focus on a smaller, more profitable audience group. There is no time for broad diffused communication thus focussing on the “true believers” within the target audience becomes important. The focus should be primarily on:

• Target audience
• Profitable segment
• Affecting consumer minds and buying behavior

Revisit the content: The content tilt is that particular area on the web that gives content marketers a fighter’s chance of breaking through the traditional marketing and becoming relevant to the audience.

This will make the content so different that it will get rewarded with the targeted audience’s attention.

While “tilting” the content is just not enough to truly have a different story to communicate and that will most likely fade the content or be forgotten in the internet jungle. So it is very important to get focused on your content marketing approach.

• Audience (focus on a super niche audience area or an underserved section of the  audience group)
• Positioning (talk about the topic differently)
• Platform (is there a content gap on a particular platform. Is there a podcast or a YouTube series the topic)
• The subject matter (Avoid too broad topic. Focus on niche area)

Developing an internal content marketing initiative: According to the author Don Schultz “Internal marketing is more vital than external marketing. Customer-facing employees, not external marketing, drive customer acquisition and retention.”

This is true right now during the pandemic more than ever. This is the situation to make the content work better. It can be anything ranging from a simple email newsletter for salespeople notifying them of the new content initiatives and different ways to use them to a weekly podcast talking about company news (partner with HR on this).

Steal audience: In this crisis period, the people who generally make up the audience are just not standing around and waiting for the content.

They are also actively involved and searching, and engaged in content like mobile, video, audio, and textual informational or entertainment purposes.

As the corona pandemic progressed, the audience and customers had already consumed almost every movie/content of Netflix, Prime Video, and Disney Plus. To break through this behavioral habit the attention needs to be diverted and directed toward the published content and that is not an easy task.

Influencer marketing such as appearing on a podcast or writing something original works fine with many companies, but the best way is to involve them and ask them to create the content of their own and publicize the efforts and expertise.

Leveraging best talent: It is important to identify and contact content creators such as journalists, writers, and others. These talents can be reached at the digital masthead where both the staff and freelancers are available.

Exploring media partnerships is another good option to explore the number of content ideas, as the number of media companies are extremely open to new and innovative content ideas of any kind.

Preparing for an asset sale: Assets for bloggers or influencer sites and media companies are

• their built-in audiences
• the capability to tell stories to their audience and processes it to churn out amazing content that too consistently

Starting to kill social channels: The content marketers should consider the fact that the content creator is not necessarily be needed to be present everywhere on the social web. A strategic decision is needed not only to serve the targeted audience faithfully but also to help their business at the same time.