Lesson’s from SARS show that Swine Flu needs to be watched carefully by businesses. Reduced international air travel should result in advertisers rethinking marketing and advertising strategies. In Australia tourism operators will focus more on intrastate & interstate sales as consumers rethink overseas travel arrangements. Also history shows that after events like this the market rebounds so a long term view is best.

We will all deal with this latest outbreak and if contained its impact will be short term, but there is and will be impact. For travel, tourism and hospitality businesses in particular, realigning advertising strategies early can soften the commercial impact of such event. Stopping a PPC campaign is not the answer, rethinking your advertising strategy will serve you better and retain market share as many businesses make poor decision during times of uncertain events. Those businesses that put a strategic marketing response in place and continue advertising will rebound faster when it ends. Continuing you PPC campaign will be your best value advertising option. Your brand will remain strong in the market place which will allow you to gain market share against competitors that get it wrong.

My advise is learn the lesson from SARS, be aware, research before reacting and if your business is being affected adjust your advertising strategies and KPI’s. Search agencies that have experienced events like SARS will be better able to recommend PPC options to suit your particular circumstances.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, April 30th, 2009 at 9:46 am and is filed under News, Paid Search, SEM Stuff, Search Industry. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.