We’ve been hearing about the new normal for months, but no one is sure what that means. Marketers have some ideas. Health experts have some ideas. But that’s all it is—ideas. No one has lived in the new normal. No country can say that its citizens are living in the new normal. We have some inkling of how it would look and feel like, but we’re not sure if we’re even that clever to know. After all, didn’t the past year teach us that there was nothing we know about the world we live in?
Businesses, of course, remain to be a vulnerable victim of the uncertainty society faces. In these turbulent times, only businesses that learn how to pivot amid the insecurities and vulnerabilities will live to tell the tale. If you are lucky enough to be standing even after the year that has been crashing blow for economies, then learn the many ways your business can adapt its marketing plans to bring itself at par with the new normal.
Arming Your Business with the Right Tools
What marketing tools do you use for your business? Traditionally, businesses will use social media, the internet, pay-per-click ads, magazines, newspapers, and television to reach out to their markets. Will these still work today? Not really. The first thing you have to do is to hire an outsourced business marketing coach. Why do you need someone from outside your company? Because now more than ever, you need a fresh pair of eyes. Your business needs new ideas. Only someone who is not part of your company’s pre-pandemic team can help it thrive in the new normal.
Identifying a New Market
Remember that your market will change completely because of the pandemic. Even though they will remain the same, their spending habits will change. Some of them have lost their jobs. Others are barely scraping by. They will most likely spend on the essentials and less on discretionary items. You have probably started noticing that. Depending on what industry you belong to, you will see different patterns emerging where some products are selling more than the others.
You have to know if your audience has changed and how significant this change is. Compare your sales and website visits before the pandemic and during the pandemic. What did you notice? Have you had an influx of new followers? What web pages are they checking? What products are they carting out? Check the inquiries you’re receiving from your customers. From which demographics are these new inquiries coming from?
Adapting to New Demands
When the lockdown was announced in March 2020, governments only allowed “essential” businesses to operate. This means businesses in the food, medicine, and health care industries. The essential product lines are defined clearly—sanitizers, alcohols, face masks, face shields, etc. This change can be felt beyond the industries mentioned. For example, in the print industry, they went from printing physical signages for trade shows to printing signages to remind people to wear their masks.
Even luxury brands shifted from producing luxury handbags and garments to producing face masks, as well as alcohol and personal protective equipment (PPE). Good businesses are the ones that can adjust to the new and emerging demands of the market. You cannot expect your market to stay the same forever. They will evolve. They will start to want things that you cannot offer. Your job is to meet these demands.
Think about how your company is working internally, too. Working from home was once the perk of progressive and forward-thinking companies. Today, it is a norm and companies are actually finding a way to accommodate more remote work setups.
Opening an Online Shop
Whether it’s buying a car or a home or a pair of shoes, shopping became more of an e-commerce experience than the one you are used to in a brick-and-mortar store. In June 2020, online sales grew by 76%. This tells you that companies are seeing e-commerce as the new normal. This isn’t a trend. It will not pass. If you don’t join the bandwagon, if you do not have an e-commerce site right now, you will watch your business fail.
Things are changing, and in ways no one would have been able to imagine a year before. The way for a business to survive is to try to be a step ahead of these changes. Instead of only adapting to what the new normal dictates, try to be the one leading the pack. You should be the one other businesses aim to follow, instead of you being the follower of what others are already doing.
