With the current demand predominantly governed by tech-savvy and smartphone-dependent consumers, more businesses have begun investing in digital strategies to stay competitive. The unforeseen impact brought by the COVID-19 pandemic on the global economy affecting firms of all sizes only further reinforced this tactical approach.
‘Business agility’ has gained more relevance now more than ever. Delving deeper, the term 'agile' means "fixing the plane while it flies" isn't unfamiliar to most businesses that have seen their fair share of crises. However, the rules ended up being struck and rewritten with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. During our numerous interactions with existing and prospective clientele, we realized that driving ‘agility’— from corporations to institutions; is not fixing the plane mid-air; it is about building a strong and resilient from the core.
Steering sustainable growth
Globally renowned organizations have demonstrated exceptional resilience because they clearly understand their existing and potential strengths and have their goals perfectly aligned with current and future opportunities.
Thought leadership in business have put forth the following steps that need to be taken to become a resilient organization:
- Enhance digital innovations and presence
- Post-modernize customer support operations
- Build a trusted technology ecosystem
- Scale automation pilots
- Create a resilient IT architecture
- Establish a sensing function
- Reallocate tech funding for agility
- Keep an eye on their assets
- Get to know their people, inside and out
Empowering business resilience through Digital Transformation
Leading marketers slowly realize the need to generate campaigns that accurately respond to their target demographic's needs and demands. This move has immensely benefitted several small and medium scale businesses that have been able to turn adversities into advantages. Marcom agencies could bridge the technology and brand interaction gap for businesses with limited digital marketing experience and resources, thus helping them maximize audience engagement, resources, conversions and, hopefully, get a higher ROI.
When we set out to bolster our clients’ digital resilience to increase business traction and growth, we discovered some key insights:
- Reimagine customer experience by focusing on human-centred design
- Bridge the physical and digital worlds to deliver new value
- Establish trust as a critical business value
This meant we had to redefine the brand marketing strategy, content strategy, media strategy and omnichannel strategy to bring our clients' products and services across target demographics. Digital infrastructure has metamorphosized into data-driven customer profiling technologies. Numerous companies invest in building these capabilities for themselves or deploying a cloud-based solution provided by an external specialist.
Take, for instance, Cloud Champions 11, a rewards and recognition program aimed at building a better connection between Microsoft Partners and its CSP partners (Small and Medium Enterprises) and fuelling Year-on-Year business growth. While Microsoft faced a fragmented partner ecosystem and a lack of partner outreach, their partners struggled with growth challenges. The program provided an enhanced focus on cloud technology to unlock business potential and featured exclusive business rewards, recognition and various exciting experiences, specially curated from across the globe.
Deploying the right resources
One thing that has been overlooked so far is that many businesses harbor unreasonable expectations during turbulent phases, such as getting aboard the digital world. What needs to be understood is that digital transformation is a process and must be treated like one. It consists of a multidimensional approach, resourcefulness powered by well-planned result-oriented strategies.
Ironing out the business challenges met by our clientele to enhance their performance so they could drive scale and revive continuity meant realizing the formerly mentioned qualities:
Access to the latest tools and tech
Taking advantage of the right set of tools such as Google Webmaster, Google Analytics, Keyword Planner, SEMrush, etc., to strengthen social media strategies, search engine optimization (SEO), content marketing and pay-per-click advertising.
Ensuring short term goals align with the long-term brand vision
Campaigns range from short-term to long-term based on the target-specific goals, amount of traffic or lead generation rate. Campaigns could lead from six months to a year, wherein our team would ensure that a brand’s short-term plans are aligned with its bigger goals through a monthly or quarterly evaluation.
Measurable and scalable performance
The insights and data we receive during our campaigns became the guiding light for upcoming major campaigns. This helps ensure accurate targeting, powerful and persuasive content generation alongside smarter tactics.
Persuasive content
Recent times have given rise to prominence in content that throws light on performance advantage (pricing, faster or more reliable supply etc.) or stirs emotions (brand appeal, personal chemistry, long-term loyalty, etc.) or, most likely, a combination of the two.
Birla Tyres wanted to create a more substantial brand presence on social media. Generating leads from both B2B and B2C customers was indeed daunting. To help the brand achieve these goals, we devised an engaging content strategy and a website makeover. The brand’s reliable product performance and its 25 year-long legacy of keeping the nation safer on the roads fuelled our content creation, which eventually resonated with the masses. Thus 'Birla Tyres - Jispe Desh Chalta Hai' emerged wherein we ran geo-targeted and YouTube ads that helped create brand affinity among fleet owners, drivers and farmers, and ensured enhanced sales.
Reevaluate. Reimagine. Redefine.
Although the pandemic kept throwing curveballs at businesses and economies worldwide, it also brought forth pathbreaking technologies and powerful marketing insights. A very common doubt that arose during our client sessions was - "Should one grow by focusing or extending their brand position in the value chain?” Simply put, if a company’s forte was customer service excellence defined by strong interpersonal relationships, should it focus only on making that quality better or diversify into other elements, which would further strengthen its core business?
BMW Motorrad experienced something similar during the pandemic. Even while enjoying great interpersonal relationships fuelled by trust and quality, the recent economic slowdown brought unforeseen challenges to light. Due to health and safety concerns, new prospects were unwilling to visit, take test rides, and buy new luxury motorbikes. Building a digital community, promoting personalized content illuminating superior dynamic riding experiences with luxury bikes, eye-grabbing visuals showcasing latest models stirred conversations online, created the desired brand resonance producing a spike in lead rates.
The power of social media
Enterprises can achieve true business resilience by leveraging the competitive advantage of their core strengths and channelizing the same to ensure meaningful and sustainable growth. Organizations nowadays have a thirst to grow organically while maintaining their specialist focus while seeking and taking advantage of complementary M&A opportunities. This is where the power of social media steps in. Brands who gauged success and achieved resilience know to connect today's resources—individuals, organizations, institutions, and society to meet tomorrow's challenges.
As marketers and enterprises who believe in the relentless pursuit of excellence and innovations at every step, it is essential to understand that promoting products or services on social media is an important and influential way of marketing. And how to drive engagement? By having a keen eye and ear for consumers' evolving and changing needs, prompt response, and maintaining the traits and advantages that set us apart from the competition. Digital marketing is crucial for businesses to develop resilient strategies, ultimately enabling them to grow into a crisis-proof organization. Evidently, this will rest on the trusted rapport built by the resilient organization and its customer base, which will eventually fuel the future growth and the confidence to develop products and services to improve consumer lifestyle. The inevitability of future change, unprecedented turbulence and changing needs can be managed easily and efficiently through this alert and responsive approach, central to building business resilience.
