Digital Marketing Trends in a Covid World

 

Covid lockdowns have significantly altered consumer behavior and buying habits.

The desktop is Queen. For example, as noted in Gartner's Digital IQ Index 2020 report released recently, traffic originating from desktops is understandably growing (relative to mobile traffic) as more consumers access digital properties from the comfort of their homes. For details, check out Gartner's Digital IQ Index 2020 report for big-box retailers in the US (executive summary). Big-box retailers are superstores generally housed in large buildings that look like a big box (hence the name), for example, Wal-Mart, Ikea, and Home Depot.

E-commerce. Another trend has seen the shift to e-commerce (relative to brick and mortar) even more so than before the pandemic. This is an expected result of reduced traffic in shopping malls and consumers being forced to buy online. Companies that had a solid e-commerce and omni-channel presence prior to the shift have clearly benefitted whereas those that didn't (e.g. Ikea) have struggled. Online buying is key because even when consumers prefer to buy-online-pickup-in-store (BOPID), they are still initiating the purchase online.

DIY. There has also been a surge in do-it-yourself (DIY) projects both big and small. Example projects I've seen in my own circle include various home improvements, puzzles, and games. Anything that will occupy time in a somewhat productive way and perhaps even provide an occasion for multiple family members to participate.  This trend has benefitted the Home Depots and Lowe's of the world. So much so that some have struggled to keep up with the increase in online traffic. My own $1,000 purchase for materials to build a floating deck last summer failed to get through one of these retailer's web site. I received an email a few days later, apologizing and requesting me to pursue the transaction at a nearby store. 

Cloud. As a side-effect of increased traffic to digital properties, companies have realized the importance of being able to scale, often at very short notice. This has resulted in attention being diverted towards cloud deployments. Whereas Amazon AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google GCP continue to be the leaders in this space, many others like IBM have benefited from the trend.

Platforms. Smaller companies that had the insight and capital to build an online presence overnight have thronged to platforms like Shopify, BigCommerce, and Magento open-source that let companies build e-commerce sites quickly and cheaply. Larger companies are going to continue to look at enterprise solutions like Adobe (with their not-free version of Magento), Salesforce (Demandware), Oracle, and SAP.

Inventory. Now that customers aren't walking down aisles and can't see that there's only one Xbox console of their choice left on the shelf, for example, it is all the more important for retailers to show remaining inventory count as part of their product detail pages so that consumers can make informed decisions and don't face disappointment later in the buying cycle. According to the Gartner report cited above, only 35% of the big-box retailers they surveyed include inventory counts on their products.

WFH. Working from home has resulted in a surge in demand for small appliances, consumer electronics, games, puzzles, PPE, etc. At the same time, there's been a drop in demand for apparel (see Adobe's DEI 2020).

AI. Artificial intelligence and machine learning are here to stay and have made great strides. However, as many have pointed out (e.g. Gartner's Marketing Data and Analytics Survey 2020), trust in AI/ML continues to hinder our ability to make the most of it. Most leaders trust their own instincts more and suffer from confirmation bias when reviewing data analytics insights.

Talent. Some great talent has come available as a result of layoffs in the hospitality, entertainment, and travel sectors. Smart companies are gobbling up these hard to find resources.

Cloud-to-prem. As the excellent Bain Technology Report 2020 highlighted, CSPs are aiding in the transition to cloud via on-premise cloud offerings such as AWS Outposts, Azure Stack Hub, Azure Arc, and GCP. In doing so, they are threatening the on-prem stranglehold that OEMs have enjoyed for a long time. (Also note, AWS Wavelength and the cloud-to-edge trend.)

Slowbalization. This is the term coined by Bakas in 2015 to describe the slowing of globalization. Tariffs, cyber-security concerns, and the pandemic have colluded to seriously disrupt the global fraternity.

Hyper-converged Infrastructure (HCI). This refers to software-defined infrastructure that unifies virtualized computing (hypervisor), software-defined storage, and virtualized (software-defined) networking (e.g. fiber channel switching) and typically runs on commercial off-the-shelf servers used as a means to stand up a private cloud (think of it as an ultra-modern data center). Offerings in this space include Nutanix and HP's Ezmeral delivered via their cloud offering GreenLake.

Inflation. Covid's inflationary environment has meant that digital purchase power (DPP), which usually grows at about 4% YoY has in fact either stagnated or in some cases dropped. This is especially evident in sectors such as grocery. 

Reviews. Despite the well-accepted importance of consumer reviews, 46% of brands surveyed by Gartner do not have reviews on their product pages. And even when they do, users prefer to read the more numerous reviews of the same products on Amazon. This is clearly a gap that companies need to work hard to address. One of the challenges is that no one wants to read anonymous reviews. Therefore, increasing authenticated user engagement is key. That combined with "helpful" scores to indicate how many readers found the review useful and top reviewer statuses to identify trusted reviewers are seemingly simple ideas that Amazon implemented years ago and most retailers have failed to do.