For businesses, brands and marketers alike, the recent pandemic brought significant change, including how we go about our daily lives. From learning to working to shopping and everything in between, the world was forced to quickly adopt the digital world on a mass scale.

Despite our transition back to pre-pandemic behaviors, many of our learned habits are here to stay. In fact, Insider Intelligence tells us that in the US, e-commerce sales will surpass $1 trillion in 2022, a milestone that before the pandemic, was not expected to happen until 2024.

With digital being the new normal, you’re likely wondering how to thrive in the new norm of an online marketplace.

To help you succeed in this truly omni-channel world, we’ve curated five powerful tips to help you elevate your brand’s marketing efforts.

Let’s go!

Leverage Real-Time Data

The most basic idea of marketing is promoting a product, company, or service to a customer who needs it. This idea remains the same in the digital world; however, the task is made far easier with the technology of real-time data.

Real-time data is available as soon as it's created, allowing companies to understand exactly what their customers need. It can be accumulated in a wide variety of ways, such as social media activity, visitors to your website, transactions, or even cameras or sensors in your business.

This data can be used to identify exactly who the customer is, where they are in your sales funnel, and so on. You can then send them deals, bundles, and incentives to convert an interested potential customer to a converted paying customer.

Real-time data is also able to provide you with information about what your customers are interested in, giving you insight into what you should market, discount, or even consider folding into your product portfolio. This is called hyper-personalization, a concept that became increasingly important to customers during the pandemic. In fact, 97% of marketers witnessed brands using personalization, as customers craved more personal connections between consumer and brand.

Pro Tip: Be certain to connect third party tools such as Google Analytics, Google Search Console or HotJar to help you sort through your real-time data effectively and turn insight into action.

Give Your Brand a Personality

Connecting with the brands people love has become more important than ever because of the pandemic. Customers expect you to be genuine and honest, and they want to hear the good, the bad, and the ugly. Most importantly, they want to receive valuable content, whether educational or entertaining. Consumers love brands that are multi-faceted, entertaining them while also providing them with relevant and valuable information.

But how can you do this?

Brands are just like humans. They have personalities that are formed by the ongoing interaction of temperament, character, and environment. Setting a foundation for your brand’s personality is formalized during the branding phase, a process we talk extensively about in our Brand Style Guide post.

Within the digital landscape, content creation is the most relevant way to let your brand’s personality shine. Today’s consumer tends to gravitate towards content that can entertain while providing value – offering both is key to elevating your brand's personality. The more personality your brand has, the more relatable you are, increasing engagement on your content and ultimately leading to conversions.

While leveling up your presence on social media is important, remember that any well thought through goal needs a strategy. After all, if you don’t know where you’re going, how are you going to get there?

Want to learn more about social media strategy? We got you covered!

Get Vocal About Your Brand's Values and Beliefs

Whether social, environmental or political, consumers value companies that choose to take a stand on issues that are important to them, perhaps now more than ever before. In fact, 98% of people believe brands have a responsibility to make a positive change in the world.

According to Sprout Social, consumers are more likely to buy from a company whose values and ideals align with their own. In fact, 55% of consumers would boycott a brand whose values they disagree with and 37% of consumers would tell friends and family about a brand if their values aligned.

Being transparent about your company's mission and values is vital to creating brand loyalty. Not only does it help customers feel more connected, but it also encourages consumers to educate their friends and family about your brand.

Pro Tip: Leverage different digital marketing platforms (such as Instagram Stories) to showcase how your brand is living its mission and values in a very intimate and organic way.

Spread Your Digital Wings

We just discussed how social media platforms are a great way to begin showcasing your brand’s personality with on-brand content. According to Oberlo, there are 3.96 billion reasons why you should prioritize these marketing outlets.

With so many options these days, users often have a primary social outlet and at least one secondary outlet they spend time on. It’s important to have multiple digital touchpoints, as your target audience will likely spend more time on one platform than another.

Once you’ve mastered or outsourced your social media, consider implementing other digital strategies such as email, newsletters, and SMS messaging to complement these efforts.

From driving awareness to increasing engagement and driving purchase conversions, social media is ground zero for all brand marketing efforts – increase your reach and impact by spreading your digital wings.

Pro Tip: Clients often ask how many platforms they should be on and which they should prioritize, so here’s the inside scoop:

Number of Platforms: Minimum of 2, maximum of 4
Which Platforms? Depends on your target audience but you should always prioritize visual content (imagery and video)

Give Your Customers What They Want (to the 10th degree)

Being in business means effectively and efficiently solving problems people face with solutions they love. With the accelerated growth of technology, many of the hurdles associated with standing up a business have been removed. This means that differentiation is key to long-term success.

But what does it mean to be different?

Most consumers define differentiation in the form of an experience (not just a good one, but a great one). This is your customers’ perception of how they are treated when interacting with your company and includes everything we’ve talked about, such as being transparent and genuine, using personalization, and focusing on the long-term relationship.

According to Super Office, priorities have shifted drastically for consumers. Eighty-six percent of customers are willing to pay more for a good customer experience which can translate to capturing MSRPs 13-18% higher than companies that don’t offer great experiences.

Elevating your customer’s experience can help improve cross-selling and up-selling, retention, and overall customer satisfaction. Treat your customers like family, give them what they want, and elevate their experience!

Pro Tip: Easily elevate your customer’s digital experience by reading our previous post on the future of e-Commerce with Conversational Commerce.

And Off You Go!

These tips and concepts will help you elevate your digital marketing efforts in a post-pandemic world. Drop us your thoughts in the comments below or reach out directly. We might not take ourselves too seriously, but we sure do take our work seriously!

5 Digital Marketing Tips to Thrive in a Post-Pandemic World