Customer delight will be a key differentiator for brands this year: Priyanka Prakash

Shrugging off the disruptions of the year gone by, businesses and agencies are looking for a strong revival in 2021. Over the next few weeks, Adgully – as part of our annual TRENDING NOW endeavour – will be presenting the strategies and views of a cross-section of industry leaders as they go about reclaiming lost time and market opportunities and build for a stronger future, armed with the lessons of 2020. 

Priyanka Prakash, Director and Head of Online Giving, Marketing & Partnerships at GiveIndia, sees the virtual and digital first world continuing strong in 2021 and most likely making long-term changes to the way brands engage with consumers. She further adds that brands will need to create seamless digital journeys for customers and develop a unique digital footprint to stand out from the clutter. 

Outlook for 2021

The COVID-19 pandemic has challenged and changed the way brands and businesses operate. The virtual and digital first world will continue in 2021 and most likely make long-term changes to the way we engage with consumers. It will be imperative for brands to put consumers at the centre of every decision, especially considering how remote work and virtual engagement with brands will continue – ensuring that there is consistency and engagement across all touchpoints. Many brands will continue to leverage video and live-streams as a means to communicate effectively with their customer base. As the virtual world is here to stay, digital and social media become an even more powerful medium for brands to directly engage with customers frequently, with purpose and in a more engaging manner through more interactive mediums and digital-first experiences. 

Great expectations

As we continue to grapple with the pandemic and its continued effects on businesses, brands would need to focus on creating seamless digital journeys for customers and developing a unique digital footprint to stand out from the clutter. In the era of “work from home” consumers will shift to dynamic experiences such as live-streams, communities, virtual events and digital-gratification. In 2021, another key focus area will be customer delight as a key differentiator for brands, brands must invest a lot more effort on customer journey and experience and nurturing them at every touch point. Lastly, as brands evolve to be more purpose-driven, we will see a lot more marketing initiatives that will give back. More and more consumers want to engage with brands that are socially responsible and such initiatives only help widen the top-of-funnel leads and also strengthen relationships with existing customers by enhancing the brand image. 

Key learnings from 2020

Adapting to the new normal has been a key learning for sure. Moving towards an all virtual, contactless business model in a virtual work environment has been a learning curve for many of us. Marketing shifted in many ways, from brands moving towards digital-first, experiential marketing to promoting empathy and demonstrating social responsibility marking these experiments a huge win for many brands, especially in the peak turbulent times of 2020. This is something that brands will take forward as a learning to build strong loyalty through personal, empathetic marketing.

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