Pandemic has disrupted marketing. It has transformed the traditional methods and strategies for businesses.
The changing dynamics of businesses have questioned the traditional marketing strategies. It left marketers puzzled.
“How to thrive in marketing post-pandemic?” became the biggest question for marketers.
Finding answer to the above question is very important to get success in marketing. So, here are the five new rules of post-pandemic marketing.
1. Marketing starts with understanding your customer segment
Gone are the days when marketing was only about knowing your customer, today it’s more about knowing your customer segment.
The Pandemic compelled brands to communicate using exact and local terms, to target specific customers.
This means understanding the situation on the ground, truth, place by place. For some organizations, like restaurants, banks, retailers, it might mean tailoring the communications of every single store.
Other than geography, the marketing messages should be relevant and aligned to the values and situation of every individual, in contrast to the demographics like gender and age.
Moreover, building a human and personal connection within any business message needs defining the consumer segments that characterize people according to the multiple dimensions that affect their buying behaviour- from their attitudinal features to psychographics.
In addition to this, using consumer segmentation and personas can also bring deep insights into creative marketing strategies and media approaches.
2.Your competition is with your customer
Now your competition is not your competitors but your customers only. Before the arrival of the Pandemic, the expectations of customers were already on the rise. Generation Z grew up using the same best technologies. B2C companies such as Parachute and Glossier had already conditioned us to expect hyper-personalization because they were explicitly adept with our data.
But when the coronavirus entered our lives, the online world had transformed overnight. This led to a rise in the expectations of customers from the companies. The customers now have high expectations; they expect more than just a primary digital transaction. As the business has customers data, the customers want a more customized and personalized buying experience.
To fulfill the expectations of customers, the companies should follow the below-mentioned strategies.
✓ Make the scores of the brand an important KPI for the consumer-facing organization, preferably by using real-time analytics rather than the snapshot looking in the past.
✓ Build the right technology and data foundation to support the critical cases all along the customer’s customers journey.
✓ Align the collective and individual goals across the customer’s journey so that any disconnection between the functional silos such as sales, customer service, and marketing is not visible to the end customer.
3. Customers expect you to have completed what they desire.
Customers are now the king; they do not wish but expect you to have the products they want. They hope that their experience should be anticipatory, frictionless, connected, and relevant. In simpler words, they are more concerned about receiving what they want. And they believe that nothing comes in their way.
Building all these experiences needs the businesses to keep technology and data at the core of their company. This means that companies should put some degree of artificial intelligence and machine learning into the mix. Why? Because the data permits us to make more relevant experiences across the different dimensions of 4Cs. They are as follows:
✓ Content which can be provided via mobile applications and emails.
✓ Commerce like e-commerce, physical retail, or a hybrid experience.
✓ A community like convening the B2B purchasers at online trade shows or hosting the webinars.
✓ Convenience such as offering coupons and other benefits to the consumers.
Nowadays, all these 4Cs are conveyed in an “a size that fits all” approach. But as the customers are demanding more personalization, the businesses need to use more intelligence and data to enhance their decision-making and build great relevance in customers’ interactions to develop strong personal connections with their brand.
4. Agility is the latest marketing approach.
Agility is no more a technology process; it’s now a marketing approach. Coronavirus has made an irreversible trend for marketing to accept a similar nimble mentality. As the crisis opened out, a business can quickly find its message was incorrect or its supply chain is not in a position to deliver, straight away building a public relations crisis.
For instance, imagine an advertisement displaying people standing in a group, not signifying social distancing. Suddenly, all the yearly budget cycles and creative processes felt outmoded while all the traditional dynamics became compelling. The most promising result of the crisis was to build a mindset of marketing agility that will stay permanent.
This consists of continuous demand sensing and consumer listening, not just for the advantage of marketing but also for the company to capture consumers’ spirit. At the same time, it also means more flexibility and quick decision cycles in areas such as budgeting, media, and creativity.
5. Your brand should be based on great value.
Your brand shouldn’t be known for its products but its values. With the advent of covid-19, brand loyalty has been challenged. The dynamic combined with the growing awareness of consumers and activism accelerated during the social unrest of the year 2020 should make brands more focused on all the values they show.
Moreover, marketing also has the opportunity to educate the C-suite on the significance of brand values when it comes to transforming in a post-pandemic marketplace where the preferences of brands have been elevated.
Conclusion
That’s all! Here we have mentioned in detail all about the impact of the Pandemic on marketing. Change is a part of life, and there is no denying that the Pandemic has changed our lives. Every sector is implementing the post-pandemic changes that can benefit them and help their business to grow.
In case we have missed something, feel free to reach out to us in the comments section.