Are you ready for the NEW NORMAL
This is the ideal opportunity to reset, review and plan for a new future. Now is the time to change your marketing activity to meet the needs of your customers post COVID-19.
Customers will increase their online shopping habits. In a very short period of time customers needs have made new advanced expectations.
Digital adoption is accelerating quicker than most businesses can keep up.
Whether for transactional, educational or personal purposes your customers are expecting an experience they enjoyed before in shops, restaurants, offices etc. but online. These expectations are actually higher than in person, your digital channels have to pivot and keep up.
This is the reason all organisations need to speed up their digital transformation and change direction to meet purchasers where they are currently — online, this is the new normal. How then do you approach this new “normal”, what are customers expecting to see and how should you engage with them
- Connecting your customer data across the touch points they have.
- Setting your marketing objectives across all channels.
- Allowing customers to self service as much as possible.
- Offering more product information, virtual tours, imagery to digital channels.
Review, pivot – the time to transform is now!
1. Understanding what your customer needs
Your customer behaviour is changing – and quickly, especially over the last 4 months. You need to understand what it is your customers want (product/service), how they want it (website, social, in person) and when they want it (fulfilment). This will help define what action can be taken to get in front of them.
2. Pivot fast; be more agile
Being flexible and agile is important, especially now. You need to be able to change direction with your digital strategy as your customers needs and desires change.
Coming out of lockdown is going to be just as important, many customers (B2C and B2B) just will not want to, or can, interact face to face – so what can you do to help them and get your product or service to them how they want it?
Ask yourself how quickly can I change direction, strategy?
3. Self service
Can you offer ways for your customers to self service? Take new build houses as an example, we work with a number of house builders, all of them are now introducing virtual tours of the show homes for those customers that do not want to visit. As well as appointment only visits to show homes for customers to view on their won at an allotted time.
Can your customers buy your product or service online now even if its a service that would normally be a face to face transaction, can they manage their accounts – are you forcing them back to the ways you used to work, will they accept this or go to a competitor that offers new ways of working?
4. Rethink your business model – think outside the box!
During lock down it was quite easy to put in short term solutions to the issues being faced, as no one kew what would happen long term. The reality now is that customer behaviour has changed and will not go back to where it was previously.
Coming out of lock down it is the time to think outside the box and what can be done long term to engage with those customers, how they want to, when they want, and where they want to be engaged with.
Connecting with your customers using automation tasks is a great of making them feel looked after without a massive burden on you and your staff. Building this into a strategy should be one of the main areas to focus on.
The pandemic has accelerated our use of technology and technology can also accelerate us out of this crisis. While businesses that are not yet well adapted to the digital world may find it more difficult, it can offer the opportunity to make these necessary and fundamental changes to the way their businesses operate. There is still time to reset, pivot, and think big, but the time to transform is now.
Lock down accelerated the sue of digital tech and post lock down digital tech can accelerate you out of the the crisis. But only if you and your business embrace the change and accept that “normal” is different now and for the foreseeable future.
Closing points
Now is the time to review your digital strategy – what have you been doing, what are you going to do. This is the starting point, this will give you a set of tactics to implement, some small, some larger. But if you sit and wait it out, how long can you do that for, and what are your competitors doing – are they targeting your customers?
Over the last few weeks I have actively helped a number of clients to pivot their digital strategy, in house build, manufacturing, retail and yoga studio – do you want some of that?