The last six months have been anything but normal. It’s not often that the world shuts down and experiences an international pandemic, and the resulting lockdowns and social distancing have been new experiences for most of us.

Fortunately, web marketing is one of the few areas that actually benefited from this unprecedented situation. In most countries, people spent more time than ever in front of a screen, whether it be a computer, a tablet, or a cell phone. This was especially true in states and countries where restaurants, rec rooms, and other forms of entertainment were completely unavailable, if not shut down altogether.

This has been one of the most interesting opportunities in years. But even if confinement due to the COVID-19 pandemic was a thriving time for our industry, it does not mean that money fell from the sky either. Knowing that this new reality is set to last for a while, it’s time to ask ourselves what we need to do to play our cards right.

Confinement is all about changing customer habits throughout the world. People are working remotely, shopping online rather than in stores, seeing fewer family and friends but jumping on the Zoom and Meet bandwagon. Some of these changes are here to stay and will become part of our new post-pandemic way of life. For example, restaurants are more likely to keep offering delivery and take-out options, online health will keep booming, and more employees will keep on working remotely.

So where do you start? First, you need to figure out if the product or service you want to promote can incorporate a reference to the pandemic situation and be better promoted as a result. For example, everything related to online health should heavily rely on a confinement sales pitch. On the other hand, people are tired of hearing about confinement and the pandemic, so whatever product or service you want to promote, stay away from creatives and taglines that refer directly to the current situation. People want to hear about positive things and not about what they cannot do.

Some verticals are also tricky to promote in time of confinement. For instance, dating can be a challenge, as several states and countries are still restricting or completely forbidding any kind of intimate encounters. Masks and social distancing are not beneficial when it comes to new dating opportunities.

So, you have two options: one, you can give up. Or two, you can be creative! Both options offer plenty of opportunities. From a technical point of view, you should do your homework, check the states and countries that are less restrictive on confinement, then go heavy on geo-localization tools to promote your dating offers in these areas. Since dating relies on location, it should be easy to use specialized and embedded tools to do your bidding.

Another good strategy is to be upfront with customers, let them know that you’re aware of their challenges, and use the situation as a segway between dating offers and video chat services. There is a wide portfolio of offers that can and will do the trick, some are already a part of dating websites, some on the stand-alone side, such as live video cam offers.

In short, you should view confinement as just another opportunity to review and rethink your strategies and sales funnels, just as we all did with Adblock and Google updates. And remind yourself that the current situation is not a challenge, but an opportunity you need to seize.