COVID-19 Impact: Relevance of 4Ps of Marketing in Business Amid COVID-19

Covid 19 and Marketing 

India has been under lockdown since March 25, and it will now continue till May 3. The number of Coronavirus cases in India crossed 32,000 on April 30, 2020 and more than 1000 people have died until now.

Every business big or small has been hit by COVID- 19 and the stock markets across the globe have crashed. Major world economies including India are bearing the brunt of lockdown. The GDP growth is declining and the economists are even predicting that the world may go into recession.

Further, the economists are still trying to analyze the exact impact of Covid-19 on the world economy. However, they are sure that the pandemic is going to give a hard hit to the economy. Moreover, it is also uncertain how long it will take to revive the economy as the condition is still volatile and the world hasn’t recovered from Corona yet.

Even if the virus slows down the businesses are going to struggle for well over a year because they will have to make up for their losses. The companies and the marketers are trying their best to adapt to the situation. During the challenging times, they need to make sure that brands remain in a positive light. The approach towards advertising need to be changed to ensure long term consumer trust and loyalty.

How to use the 4Ps of Marketing amid Covid-19 

The COVID-19 outbreak has affected the businesses and made a big dent in the revenues. That doesn’t mean a marketer lose all the hopes and stop the marketing activities. Marketing managers need to remain motivated during this time and keep on promoting the brands. This is a time when marketers can come up with innovative campaigns so that their brand is registered in the minds of the people.

Product

Customizing products according to the market needs is very difficult in the challenging times. Amid Covid-19 the marketers can think of making some changes that are acceptable and can be implemented to best serve the customers and communities without having a negative impact in the future.
There was a huge impact on the businesses of Swiggy, Zomato, Flipkart, Bigbasket, Amazon and many other online companies due to lockdown. Amid lockdown, only the essential items were allowed to be delivered at home. These players immediately shifted the gear and took permission to deliver the essential items like vegetables and groceries. They are effectively making use of their delivery infrastructure and witnessing a surge in the revenue even at the time when other companies are struggling.
The companies are also helping the government in reducing the supply chain burden.

Place

The Corona Virus has also drastically changed the way buyers are approaching the businesses. There are no physical meetings or contact between the two.
Marketers are designing ways to interact with customers keeping in mind the safety and social distancing aspect, and deliver what customers want and need
The companies should start using AI-enabled chatbots options and to solve queries customer queries. Furthermore, giving a virtual demonstration of your products instead of sending a representative at home is a better idea amid Covid-19.
The training providers and educational institutes can use the online platforms for their trainings and courses.
Country Delight- a Gurgaon based Dairy Startup, is sending the flowing message daily to its customers- “Dear Customer, Please help us keep you safe with 100% contact-less delivery. Your delivery partner has sanitized their hands and has a normal temperature of 97.3 at 4:00 am today, Thanks.”- Team Country Delight

Price

Pic Credit: Allie on Unsplash

The people are already living in fear and are very cautious while spending or purchasing anything during the pandemic. Increasing your product price to take advantage of the situation is not going to help your brand. Similarly offering a lot of discounts is also not good for the health of your company. The price adjustment if needed can only be done in conjunction with other departments like operations and finance. You may feel the need of giving some discounts to your clients.
Some companies have waived off the shipping or delivery charges. Companies like Byju’s and Vedantu’s are giving free subscriptions till lockdown. Similarly, some matrimony apps are also offering free subscriptions during this period.

Promotion

Promotion is all about the act of communicating the values and benefits of your products to your customers. Managers use various methods of promotion to make their brand visible in the market. Promotion in a normal scenario includes direct marketing, sales promotion, advertising, and personal selling to persuade customers to your business.
Due to lockdown, there is an over 80% increase in social media usage and internet browsing. The TV viewership has also seen a similar surge. The advertising cost is also all-time low these days. Marketing managers need to identify the medium that will best suit their products. They need to take advantage of those mediums to engage their audiences.
Organizations need to assess not only the tactics or mediums they use to engage their audiences and deploy their marketing strategy but also the context of the messages they're transmitting via those channels. The promotional campaigns also need to be carefully designed keeping in mind what your consumers want to hear from you in those messages.
Many travel companies are requesting their consumers to simply postpone and not cancel their vacation giving a message that they are badly hit by Corona.
Some health drink companies, Multivitamin manufactures are focusing on more immunity development amid Covid-19 as a person with strong immunity has more chances to fight corona.

Conclusion
There is a need to reassess and readjust the four P’s of Marketing during the Corona crisis. Certainly, the companies are facing the heat due to lockdown. The marketing managers have a big responsibility to respond to these business challenges and pain points. They need to understand and adjust to the needs to find creative solutions to tackle the situation.

These 4 Ps of Marketing are very helpful when it comes to running a business. Under this unprecedented situation, the marketing managers need to rise above the storm to avoid the pitfalls. Hence the circumstances, if not handled properly can make these 4Ps Painful, Panicky, Puzzled, and Pathetic


Since everybody is working remotely, marketing budgets need to be planned accordingly by the managers.