With 2020 firmly behind us, it’s time to start strategizing to re-enter the market. The Covid-19 pandemic, global economic crises, social justice movements, and just about a dozen worldwide natural calamities have led to 2020 being an emotionally draining year. 2021 is said to bring about a remarkable change in the global socio-economic scenario. With the vaccine finally on the horizon, businesses have started reopening with considerable changes to their marketing and finance strategies. With this in mind, it is essential to ensure that your 2021 marketing strategy can live up to customer expectations to drive key results.
Social media managers went through a dynamic and unexpected change in 2020. The most crucial learning is adaptability. 2021 is going to be the year for newer improvements and a well-crafted marketing strategy. Nationwide protests, the pandemic, and so many other socio-economic issues led to a marketing and customer paradigm shift. Content creators have had to up their game, create content specifically for audiences that had a lot of time on hand, were always online, and were up to date with their customer service rights. While all this is great for content consumers, content creators have had to consider more enormous business impacts and the changes 2021 might bring about.
Most businesses run purely on numbers. While there is a lot to be said about people management, perspective, strategy, and brands, the reality is that the financials manage companies. Since all strategy and planning need to be measurable and quantifiable, there is a kernel of truth in comparative marketing statistics. With changing consumer and buyer behavior, the buying trends will probably never go back to how they were before the pandemic. This change has given rise to the need for improving the 2021 marketing strategy. The best way to do this is with quantifiable statistics that help tackle 2021 in the best way possible.
The best way forward is to pay close attention to the social data from 2020 and observe consumer behavior changes. It makes sense to deliver content that will impress and resonate with your audience. One aspect that can always be improved in any field is customer service. A marketing strategy can change the bottom line positively while enhancing the brand image and reaching out to a potentially larger customer base than before.
Statistics to watch out for improving your 2021 marketing strategy
1. Customer Service is Top Priority
Customers loyal to a brand usually return only because of the customer service the brands provide. After-sales service is key to maintaining good relations with old and returning customers. Nearly 70 – 75% of customers follow a business or brand because of their customer service. For long-term customers, the ability to report damages, claims, feedback, new product, and service launches are what keeps bringing them back.
Efficient customer service with a short turnaround time is what builds trust in customers. Marketers cannot ignore the complaints, praise, and feedback they receive from customers. Businesses should note where maximum customer complaints arise from and why they are not being addressed. Marketing strategy toward these complaints can help reduce the number of people registering these complaints.
Social media tools like listening, audio clips, explainer videos, or how-to videos can also reduce the knowledge and usage gap in customers.
Since customers are a top priority, reducing complaints and increasing positive feedback should be the main aim.
Pointing customers towards the correct approach or department can also have a positive impact on customer experience.
- Customer is King: Customers should always be made a top priority when considering the business. Instead of using customer service as a complaints tool, it can be leveraged to gain the upper hand over competitors.
- Favorable Customer Service Policy: A policy that works halfway to support the customers, how the customers should be treated, and what information could be public should be shared with the customer support staff.
- Customer Journey: Planning the customer journey with your marketing strategy can help customers understand the process better. Setting guidelines, timelines, and expected wait times make the customer service experience smoother than not communicating anything.
Marketing infographics, small images, and flowcharts can help customers with their experience and avoid clashes with customer support executives. Plan the entire journey from initial inquiries to after-sales service and improve the brand image and customer experience.
- Address Each Customer Issue: Marketing strategy can help implement negative and positive issues with customers not to arise again. Dissatisfied customers can get nasty on social media platforms and should not be left unattended. Marketing can help spread the word and ensure disgruntled customers are appeased in the least amount of time.
2. Social Media Engagement is a Necessity
By June 2020; most companies had shifted focus by an additional 23.2% to online and social media marketing. Since the pandemic ensured everyone was working from home, the space for social media engagement and online purchasing gave way to astronomical online attention. Brand awareness and brand building went up to nearly 84.5% for businesses that focused on online media.
Businesses in the Economic sector reported an increase in nearly 51% of acquired customers and customer retention by almost 49%. Social media outreach and online engagement promoted additional business during the lockdown. New products and services got online recognition, reviews, feedback, and popularity by nearly an extra 45% as against the earlier quarter.
Monitoring social media and responding positively is key to improving critical relationships with stakeholders, clients, and customers. Complaints and queries can also be quantified with the help of a useful and efficient marketing strategy. Since all data is quantifiable, the resultant numbers can ensure a positive social media engagement.
- Comment on all Posts: Commenting on each post (related to your business) allows all customers and potential buyers to understand that your company is engaged with them at all levels. Trade partners, suppliers, business associates, consumers, and clients always check online presence and reviews before conducting business. Any constructive comments, feedback, or criticism needs to be addressed first.
- Follow and Connect with Other Accounts: Social media marketing works through active connections. As part of the marketing strategy, it is best practice to connect and follow accounts of interest areas to your business – even competitors. Not only is this useful for your business, but it is also excellent for tracking the marketing strategy of others.
- Thank People: Thanking people like customers, clients, trade partners, suppliers, vendors, and others on social media, publicly help the business earn brownie points in the eyes of the masses. It hardly takes a minute to retweet, like, or share a comment, but it makes the interaction memorable. Marketing gurus understand the importance of positive reinforcement, and thanking people for their time or feedback is one of the best ways to do it.
- Actively Participate: Actively participating does not mean having a say in everything. It means being a part of the group. Engaging, agreeing, disagreeing, or adding a comment here or there will show active participation without overselling. May businesses make a mistake by trying to force sell their products and services on each platform. While doing this once a while is fair, you should avoid overselling your brand.
3. Stay Up To Date At All Times
2021 is the year for online launches. Most people prefer following brands online to stay up to date for new products and services launch. Since Influencers have a high fan following, almost all businesses employ social media influencers (paid posts) to reach a tremendously large audience with very little investment. As of 2020, influencers could reach thousands of users with a single post, and nearly 56% of users followed businesses after seeing posts, blogs, and videos on Influencer pages.
Large product launches require a lot of time, effort, and money. Influencer activities on LinkedIn were up by nearly 18% in 2020, with only blogging on the company site in a nearby range. Actively involving an Influencer on social media like LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, and other social sites is useful since it costs less (takes less money from the marketing budget than planning an entire product launch from scratch). Influencer or User Generated Content (UGC) was attributed the highest marketing strategy of 2020. This trend will continue in 2021 and should be used as a key marketing strategy.
Staying up to date on the brand social feeds like Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram also helps customers learn about new products and services. Nearly 57% of users actively follow business accounts after regular social media updates. Many companies also use social media engagement to help retain customers.
Staying up to date with online marketing helps even the curve by re-engaging past passive customers and making them active users of the products and services again. Since most customers won’t keep buying the same product, launching a tweet or posting about a new product or service or even an upgrade will help bring in returning customers.
Most business giants worldwide announce their launches over Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook simultaneously to make attention-grabbing headlines across the globe. The product or upgrade launch is planned to coincide with all other posts and updates to impact and get maximum market share substantially. Many businesses also create hype in the market about new launches. New launches, press releases, product stories, human element stories, and other vital posts positively position your brand online.
Social content strategies like these help tip the financials in your favor by positioning your brand in the perfect light. While making these changes, you should always ensure that you can reach all your target audiences within a 24-hour time frame.
4. Images and Videos Get Footfall
No one likes to read content continually. You should share relevant data and material with explainer videos, ad films, videos, product and service videos, and online guarantees. Images, infographics, and flagged posts also help get a lot of footfall. Engagement with images is up by 17%, while video is up by 23% during the pandemic.
With all the content collateral built in the past, it is ideal for converting text to image and infographics, videos, and short films to reach larger audiences. Not For Profit Organizations also engage in video and pictures to get large consumer bases. Flagging and showcasing important refreshed content (either as emailers or as posts) helps reiterate brand image and value.
Many businesses fail to keep their consumers engaged with constant posts and visibility simply because they deem previously used content un-shareable. Like we’ve mentioned earlier, it is easy to re-engage past customers and reach potential ones with a little twist to old social media content. While marketing costs are saved, users are re-engaged, hype is created in the market, and the content is shared rapidly.
Businesses should share all images and videos in easy-to-follow and read language, without any additional jargon. Humorous posts, engaging and meaningful stories, backstories, and emotional and human element posts are always liked and shared more than bland and boring ones.
· 1:1 Video Content: Personalized video content instead of long emails and boring text messages make for a memorable social strategy. Consumers who feel they get personalized attention will always gravitate towards your brand with ease.
· Live Streaming: Live streaming across various social media platforms helps garner instant engagement with a live audience. Nearly 79% of audiences would rather see an update live than have a text, explainer video, image, or email.
· Vlogs: Vlogs or Video Logs about products, services, new launches, small packets of explainer videos, and how-to videos. Adding vlogs helps engage a higher number of audiences across social media platforms. The trend for 2021 lies in thriving Vlogs.
5. SEO is the Key to Success
Search Engine Optimization or SEO has a significant impact on the statistics game. Search engines like Google keep changing their algorithms to refine user searches and provide the best results within milliseconds. The SEO trend that caught on in 2020 and will continue in 2021 is user experience or UX.
Websites and blogs need to be optimized and designed to allow users to navigate quickly and efficiently in the least possible time. Using SEO helps get the traffic and footfall to the website, but the website and design help keep users engaged.
Google tracks core web vitals like the load speed, page load times, responsiveness, features, chatbot features, visual stability, and visible page content for users. Optimizing the website with SEO and measurable user-centric outcomes helps keep customers engaged at all times.
Users get frustrated with sites that load too slowly or those that are also image-heavy. Keeping a balance between written content, images, infographics, and videos helps Google crawlers understand that the website is healthy and maintained and makes your site show up more often on the search engine. Sites that are non-responsive slip lower in the search pages and do not get active client footfall.
Getting higher rankings on Google and other search engines is possible with the correct use of SEO, page optimization, good designing, and relevant, useful content. Nearly 40% of marketers say that they generate traffic to the website, but the footfall fizzles out.
Without a marketing strategy and proper web page optimization, gaining active customers and clients will be extremely tough. Since social media and business go hand in hand with marketing strategy, it is useful to give customers an excellent user experience.
Final Thoughts
Since 2020 was a learning curve for almost all businesses, it is best to move forward into 2021 with a positive mindset filled with past learnings. Your future marketing strategy should be based on quantifiable data from 2020 and used to create a more substantial market presence to build and grow the brand. Having access and preference to certain types of target audiences, consumer behavior, and social media followers will help shape the future for excellent content optimization.
This understanding of buyer behaviors and interests is ideal for formulating a marketing strategy based on audience engagement. An effective marketing strategy can help strengthen the brand image and value with evolving customers to create a strong market presence and push the business to higher levels.
With 2021 shaping up to be a better year than 2020, the marketing dynamic will change to make the social content and strategy even more impressive than earlier. Using statistics to help devise a marketing strategy for 2021 will yield excellent results.