Revolutionise what consumers value about your business
Sun Tzu, author of The Art of War, identified that chaos introduces opportunity for innovation. This concept has continued through the decades and is particularly relevant as retail and businesses reopen. Beyond reassuring your customers that your value proposals will continue as before; you should adapt your communications to show customers what innovations have been developed and how you can serve them in new ways. Connect with new potential customers by proposing new products or services that cater to new needs.
With the correct customer-centric approach and responsiveness to what people want and need right now, businesses can emerge from this pandemic having improved their relationships with customers.
Design and co-creation
Design is regularly written off as the colouring-in department but, it’s time to appreciate the substantial value design can add to marketing your business. Design can afford you the most value when it is considered in its broadest terms.
Centring design at the core of your marketing strategies and embracing ‘design thinking’ allows designers to co-create with customers and solve problems in a more human-centred approach. To provide and meet your consumers’ needs, you must walk in their shoes; from here you will experience the challenges, moments of satisfaction and awkward experiences within the customer journey. With a first-hand perspective you can enhance their experience, through personal insight and understanding.
80:20 rule
We’ve all heard of the 80/20 rule; 80% of your profits will be created from just 20% of your current customers. Now it is all the more important to contact your most valued consumers- have a chat, learn about their issues, and suggest answers to assist and fix their problems.
The challenge post COVID-19 is to refrain from lazy one-size-fits-all push messaging. Building long-term relationships with customers has more importance now, and to do this there must be trust.
Many businesses hinder themselves by only thinking in terms of channels or, even worse, departments – the digital team/ the ecommerce team. Instead, you must think from your consumer’s perspective; how they think, feel, act and respond to your brand. Then, by implementing human-centred design and a co-creation approach, you can satisfy all your individual consumers.
To really perform, you should ensure you're adapting your messaging for different audiences on every platform- this can only happen when you have data. Data helps you understand demographics, user behaviours and organic content on each platform. You can then design your creatives for every channel, adjust your strategy with the data, and get results. Data doesn’t work on its own though, you also need to listen to your customers and become part of the conversations that are already happening.
Social listening involves monitoring your social media platforms for brand mentions and conversations; then you can analyse the insights and act accordingly. Knowing where your customers talk about you is just as significant as how they talk about you. It will allow you to create a defined strategy on joining the dialogue through organic engagement and paid advertising. Your power to understand your audiences differently will set you apart from your competitors and create more long-term loyalty and satisfaction amongst consumers.
"Brands who understand social start with listening to what the community is talking about and build from there"
Emma de la Fosse: Chief Creative Officer, Digitas UK.
What if you had a creative expert beside you? Someone to offer support, realistic direction and prompts to influence your initiatives? An ally to make the most of your potential, enhance your abilities and assist you in planning your responses. Someone to do the important and required ‘thinking different’.