Digital marketing took center stage during pandemic, lockdowns

By Nawara Fattahova

KUWAIT: Any business depends on marketing as great part of its success. With the development of modern technology, even marketing has changed. The pandemic and lockdowns led a transition to online work and business in all fields, and digital marketing became an important part of this transformation. Kuwait Times met Mohammed Fawaz, Digital Media Marketer and Content Creator, to talk about some interesting issues in digital marketing, obstacles faced by companies during the pandemic, tips to avoid bankruptcy and many others. Some excerpts:

Kuwait Times: How is digital marketing different from regular marketing?

Mohammed Fawaz: Statistically, over 80 percent of people are spending their time on their phones for more than six hours a day. People are more into visual advertisements due to their dynamic structure. Regular marketing covers billboards, printed media and TV channels, while the new digital marketing includes phones, tablets and computers. It's very easy to deliver the service and the message of your product through a short video or dynamic digital content.

KT: What tools do you use?

Fawaz: I focus on digital marketing and social media advertising, and the tools I use include search engine optimization, content marketing, email marketing, social media advertising and website marketing.

KT: How can companies benefit from this?

Fawaz: There are a bunch of benefits in using these digital marketing tools, like an increase in brand awareness, reaching a very large audience, quick communication with customers, finding insights on every single piece of content the business is posting and checking out the interaction by clients, direct communication and increasing sales due the wide range of advertising.

KT: What about individuals - do they seek this service too?

Fawaz: Definitely, but use by individuals of these marketing platforms is different from the use of businesses. Influencers, bloggers and content creators should look to the concept of the king and queen rule in marketing, where the content must be as good as advertising. I always point out that content (which is the king) has to be good and competitive in order to distribute (advertise) it. We have to check if this content can offer the viewers something.

Digital marketing during pandemic

KT: What was the role of digital marketing during the pandemic?

Fawaz: As COVID-19 spreads across the globe, the structure of marketing plans has changed and competition to increase exposure of businesses online became more harder than before the pandemic. Digital marketing was the only solution to crank up sales and save the business, because people are sitting in their homes and using their mobile phones, tablets, watching TV and using their computers.

KT: How did you save some companies or entrepreneurs from bankruptcy during the pandemic?

Fawaz: During the pandemic, I had a very long days and nights of brainstorming new ideas to people to make my advertising content outstanding in the field of marketing. I decided to focus on showing the identity and then explaining the service. Then I did a big campaign of taking leads (data collection), so I can call people to an action after building the base. This was a very dynamic way to hit people's emotions and show people how credible the business is.

KT: What advice can you give to companies that are facing problems?

Fawaz: The number one rule to survive in this new economy is to offer the customer a service that solves a problem, otherwise the customer will not be interested in your service. In other words, once your service can fix something or solve an issue to transform the current situation of the customer into a desirable one, the customer will take out their credit card and pay the business.

I do recommend companies to invest in their digital marketing department because without digital advertising, the business will never exist. Focusing on social media advertising and digital media advertising are crucial in the 2022 new economy. People are taking their actual lives into a digital world, and we started to see this through the new metaverse, where most big companies around the world are investing to advertise their products.