Good morning, Marketers, has your work been impacted by the coronavirus yet?
Maybe you’ve been told to work from home or have had to cancel business travel. Even if you haven’t been affected, the virus — or COVID-19 — has dominated our daily news cycle and drastically impacted economic conditions worldwide. On Monday, the NYSE halted trading for 15 minutes and the list of canceled tech events keeps growing.
To gauge how the virus may impact the digital marketing ecosystem, we talked to 13 different industry insiders to get their take. Tony Rindsberg, the head of marketing for the AI-powered customer service platform Thankful, said he plans to leverage digital channels more aggressively, but with a watchful eye on the outbreak.
“The wave of trade show and conference cancellations or delays like Shoptalk are significantly altering our spend allocation,” said Rindsberg.
Others, like Optmyzr CEO Frederick Vallaeys, believes e-commerce verticals may experience a lift. “Especially for CPG and those purchases we can’t postpone by a few weeks,” said Vallaeys, “That would of course have a big impact on digital marketers who could compete for the purchases of consumers who are not frequent online shoppers.”
It’s still much too early to know the long-term effects of the virus on our industry, but Samantha Barnes, Bounteous’ associate director of data analytics, says marketers should be adjusting their measurement strategies and goals for uncertain times: “I have no doubt that marketers and analysts will innovate with considerations that customer journeys can be filled with stressors and experience to acknowledge and be mindful of.”
Keep reading for a soapbox from Greg Heist on brand accountability and partnership news from Jivox and Criteo.
Amy Gesenhues,
Senior Editor