Delta Variant Leads to Shift in Consumer Behavior — Marketers Respond
With Covid-19 Delta variant cases on the rise, social distancing and sanitation have once again become top priorities for consumers. According to new data by Avionos, consumers are growing increasingly wary of shopping in physical stores due to the rise of the Delta variant. Among those consumers who shopped with a new brand during the pandemic, almost one-third cited safe in-store experiences as a top reason for choosing that brand.
The Grand Reopening: DOOH Strategies to Capitalize on Lifted Restrictions
DOOH screens can be found in most of the locations that consumers were restricted from over the past year — such as bars, restaurants, malls and movie theaters — as well as essential places that consumers continued to visit, including convenience stores, gas stations, subways, grocery stores, and more. Now that people are returning in droves to these environments, marketers are using a variety of DOOH strategies to reach consumers. Let’s review those tactics.
Don’t Call It a Recovery Yet: Small Business Growth Still Lags
Like the consequences of the shutdowns, the recovery is far from uniform. Booming growth, bull markets, crypto surges—these have little relevance to the real-world health of our economy. A decade of “roaring 20s” celebration is possible, but it’s not here yet. If the needs of the smallest firms are not perfectly aligned with the needs of the largest, their recovery won’t be, either.
How 5 Brands Adapted Their Loyalty Programs for a Post-Covid World
According to McKinsey, more than 75% of consumers tried new brands, places to shop, or methods of shopping in 2020. The reason? Product availability was high on the list, but so were price and the availability of promotions. Now, as the vaccine rollout continues and states work to get back to normal, brand marketers are finally coming up for air and looking at how they can adapt their loyalty and rewards programs for the post-Covid world.
Yelp Lets Users Fact-Check Local Business Covid Safety
Despite the vaccine rollout and improving economic sentiment, a majority of consumers remain concerned about engaging with local businesses in many places across the US. Yelp is now allowing businesses to provide more information about health and safety practices to customers in hopes of fueling a quicker recovery.
Contactless Pay Is the Next Big Pivot in Retail CX
Remember when Amazon launched Prime? The entire retail customer experience (CX) changed overnight — for everyone. The bookseller-turned-everything-seller suddenly offered low prices and fast and free delivery, leading traditional retailers to pivot drastically to keep up with their mega-competitor.
But sometimes, unexpected CX overhauls are a good thing — especially when competitors have to pivot, too.
SMBs Face Long Road to Recovery in 2021
Sixty-eight percent of SMBs say they are still experiencing a negative impact from the pandemic, and the percentage of business owners experiencing “significant” impact jumped 7% to 50% from June to November.
Businesses that thought the crisis was heading in the right direction back in October are feeling differently today as they see holiday sales figures begin to roll out, and they’re scrambling to find tools, strategies, and other lifelines to help them get by.
Google Search and the Long Pandemic
As 2021 stretched on, with its vaccine controversies and mutating variants, we realized we were really just living through an indefinite phase in the middle of a long pandemic. Consumer habits, rather than getting back to normal, were settling in to a battle-weary pattern of compromise. It seemed unlikely that local search data would tell us much we didn’t already know. But it turns out the data tells a somewhat encouraging story.