Undergraduate Blog / Career Development

Understanding Business Effects of COVID-19

COVID-19 has had extensive effects on the worldwide populations financially and socially. Social distancing initiatives have been put into place hindering physical contact and meetings. Many industries are suffering and heaps of companies will not be around even after the pandemic ends.

One of the start-ups that I am working at this summer aims to rent luxury diamond and gold jewelry pieces to individuals for events. As most events are canceled due to the global pandemic, it is very difficult to market this service to individuals. Especially because we are a start-up,  we do not have a lot of resources, so we need to prioritize where we spend our time and money. Our marketing efforts are being rerouted to aspects of the company we can control. Some of the aspects that we have been working on are emailing campaigns and awareness campaigns. Emailing campaigns will remain active for a long time even after the pandemic ends. Setting up these newsletter emails can help consumers keep in touch with your brand.

We also focused more on awareness campaigns rather than conversions because of the lack of events happening in current times. Focusing on awareness campaigns is important for consumers to familiarize themselves with your brand. This way we can plant our first seeds in the consumers minds and potentially draw them in when they are in need of the product or service.

Although COVID-19 has rippling effects through multiple industries, you should keep in mind what factors you can control. Does it make sense to spend funds on advertising? Does it make sense to focus on this project at this current moment? These are questions I ask myself week to week during my internship. I want to be as aware of the current pandemic in order to understand the steps that I can take to do the best job at my internship.