COVID-19 Market Impact Dashboards

When, Where, and How are Consumers Spending?

To help our clients rebound from the COVID-19 pandemic, we’ve made big enhancements to our interactive Market Impact Dashboards:

NEW! Consumer spend data to help marketers uncover changes in spending behavior at the local, regional, and national level across Airlines, Restaurants & Bars, Department Stores, and Food Stores categories.

NEW! Google’s Mobility data to measure a population’s movement change against a pre-COVID-19 baseline across six categories:

Residential
Parks
Grocery/Pharmacy
Retail & Recreation
Transit Stations

Merkle’s Economic Resilience Index (ERI) now prioritizes case counts and trends over the past 45 days to reveal the nation’s flattening curve using a NEW trend line feature.

Our Dashboard Methodology:

Beginning with our rich proprietary DataSource datasets and Economic Resilience Index (ERI), we overlaid county-level medical and health care coverage data.

To inform your engagement strategy, see the status of overall physical and economic health on the US county-level, highlighting:

Buying behaviors
Discretionary spend across industries
Liquid assets

How marketers across each industry can use the dashboard

Auto Manufacturers and Dealers

Through these dashboards, auto manufacturers and dealers will gain insight into the following questions:

Which individual dealerships or regions/markets are more likely to sustain significant impact and how can they plan for the impact?
Where should regional managers plan for the next event to drive increased participation and sales purchase?
How should we tailor the customer journey, based on the resilience of the markets?
How do we drive retention efforts and level of marketing investment by region, overlaying with sales and leads information?
How do we identify counties that have higher likelihood to buy a new car, coupled with their economic resilience to drive conquesting?
How do we inform offers and incentives by region, based on market resilience?

B2B

You’ll find out:

How you should tailor your B2B service offerings based on the resilience of the markets toward COVID-19
Which regions are disproportionately impacted by COVID and require elevated levels of support from B2B healthcare, federal agencies, and related private sector
Which regions are resilient in weathering the impact and soon to resume the normal business operations, and which B2B industries will emerge stronger from this crisis
What marketing tactics, including virtual events and webinars, and content are relevant given the resilience of markets, both regionally and by customer segment
Where you can get the biggest return on marketing investment, such as brand versus demand generation, and whether direct mail and telemarketing should be resumed strategically in certain regions and industries

Retailers

You’ll find out:

What store locations should be reopened. What operating hours may make sense. Where appropriate in-store events have potential
What strategic change can be made to the inventory assortments to reflect the potential price pressures
What areas exihibit the greatest staffing challenges
Where curbside pickup will likely continue to be the customer’s preference
Where you can get the biggest return on your marketing dollar investment When you should resume direct mail/paid media in certain areas. Where you should resume mass media advertising.
Where targeted discounts, offer personalization, or custom messaging make sense
Where your community contributions have the greatest impact

Consumer Packaged Goods

You’ll find out:

Which communities are most likely to shop for discretionary items first?
Should we point consumers to online or in-store purchases?
What type of messaging is best for which community? How should we tailor media and communications to meet our consumers where they are?
Where can we get the biggest return on our marketing investment?
Which areas should we refrain from sending marketing communications?

Health Industry

Through these dashboards, organizations in the health industry will gain insight into the following questions:

Which communities are expected to most quickly resume physician office visits?
In which communities will sensitivity to healthcare coverage be highest?
How should we tailor communications based on the resilience of the markets where our customers and prospects reside?
Where can we get the biggest return on our marketing dollar investment? Should we resume direct mail/paid media in certain areas?
What are factors we should consider in our re-opening plan?

Media

You’ll find out:

How you should tailor your retention and acquisition efforts based on the resiliency of the markets where your customers and prospects reside
Which communities are most likely to resume spend the soonest
Where you can get the biggest return on your marketing dollar investment. Whether or not you should resume direct mail/paid media in certain areas
The communities that will re-open slower that pose an opportunity for greater content consumption
Which physical store locations should be re-opened first (if applicable)

Travel & Entertainment

You’ll find out:

Which communities are most likely to resume travel and entertainment spend the soonest
How you should tailor the guest journey based on the resiliency of the markets where your customers and prospects reside
Where you can get the biggest return on your marketing dollar investment. Whether or not you should resume direct mail/paid media in certain areas?
How you can connect properties that are ready to commence normal operations with guests and prospects that are likely most willing to travel
Which airline hubs are most likely to ramp up
What factors you should consider in your re-opening plan

High-Tech

Through these dashboards, organizations in the high-tech industry will gain insight into the following questions:

Which communities are most likely to resume personal spend on high-tech products soonest?
Which communities are most likely to continue to support work-from-home practices and how should that impact marketing communications?
How should we tailor the customer journeys based on the resiliency of the markets where our customers and prospects reside?
For those with B2B offers or product lines, understand which regions are resilient in weathering the impact and soon to resume the normal business operations
Where can we get the biggest return on our marketing dollar investment? Where should we focus direct mail/paid media based on current conditions?
What marketing tactics including virtual events and webinars, and content are most relevant given the resiliency of markets both regionally and by customer segment?

Financial Services

You’ll find out:

Which areas are likely to show a faster economic rebound from the crisis (e.g., using insight from variables such as ERI, home value, disposable income and loan-to-value)?
Areas where branches can be reopened, or marketing investment can be ramped-up due to higher levels of ERI
How you can prioritize marketing of new deposits and investments products in certain areas using ERI and other metrics
How you should differentiate messaging by area (e.g., low areas could be ready for BAU messaging vs. support/advice messaging in high-COVID areas)
How your media mix should differ by area (e.g., heavy direct mail use vs. other channels)
Areas to pilot alternate models for virtual engagements with wealth advisors/small business officer
Emerging areas of opportunity and risk by comparing data with forecasts and past performance, and how to address gaps in products, service, and business operations
How to identify areas to conduct more focused consumer sentiment research and analysis

Insurance

Through these dashboards, insurers will gain insight into questions such as:

Which areas are likely to rebound the fastest from the Covid crisis (using insight from variables such as home value, disposable income and liquidity/loan to value)
Areas that should be avoided from a marketing investment perspective due to lower economic resilience
The areas for piloting different alternative products by combining recovery rate data with economic resilience data. Examples of such products could include lower duration TERM life insurance products given the current interest rates, promotion of contactless medical underwriting processes, alternative VUL and UL policies as safer cash building alternatives given the current market volatility, pay as you go auto insurance products etc.
Areas to pilot alternate models for agent/distributor centric business models (helping agents generate leads and promoting virtual agent-customer relations)
Emerging areas of opportunity and risk by comparing forecasts with past year(s) performance data, and how to address gaps in products, service, and business operations

Nonprofit

You’ll find out:

Which communities may require more services and funding
Where you can get the biggest return on our marketing dollar investment
If you should focus more on direct mail and paid media in certain areas
If there are communities that could consider fundraising events in the near term
Which factors you should consider when rescheduling events
How your messaging should differ based on economic and health conditions