With the UK voting to leave the European Union people are spending a lot of time thinking about how things will change in the near and long term future. While stock markets and news channels are freaking out right now, most things will almost certainly settle down and generally return to normal within a few weeks or months at the most.
For those in the marketing industry, it might be a good idea to look at how this move will change things. Digital marketers are used to operating in a global environment since people can reach other people almost anywhere in the world with just a few clicks of the mouse.
Marketers who target European customers may have to look into adjusting the currency they accept. One thing that will make this easier is the fact that the UK never officially accepted the Euro as their main currency, though some businesses did accept it along with the Pound. Those businesses may very well stop accepting it all together. This shouldn’t be a huge change for the average marketers though as services like PayPal and others will handle most of the legwork here.
Brands and advertisers will almost certainly change the amount of money they are spending on ads throughout Europe. Major marketers may either want to focus more on England, or avoid them, depending on their goals. In the short term, the dip in the economy will also cause people to pull back on their ad spend across the board.
Whenever there is a major political shakeup like this there will also be a bunch of new laws or changes to existing laws, many of which have the potential to impact the marketing industry. To start with, European countries have been causing trouble for major digital companies like Google with lawsuits and regulations that impact their ability to compete. It is not clear yet what, if any, impact the Brexit decision will have on these types of things, but it is certainly something to keep an eye on.
Of course, it is impossible to predict all the changes that will come from this decision. What we can be confident of, however, is that there will be some changes that impact digital marketing in the near future. Keeping an eye out for what opportunities this creates will help some to capitalize on the situation.
