2021/10/food-delivery-1080.jpg Anonimous fast delivery food service at home. Man courier delivered the order no name bag with food.
Anonimous fast delivery food service at home. Man courier delivered the order no name bag with food.

4 ways to stay customer-centric for near-term success.

Paul Donagher, Radius Insights, Radius Global Market Research 2021/08/paul-donagher-bio.jpg

by Paul Donagher

Director, Client Services

As individuals, we have all been impacted to some degree by the challenges brought on by the current pandemic. We’ve changed the way we shop, work, and interact with our friends and family. Some of these changes will be temporary, or permanent, or maybe the first step in a marked evolution in behaviors that started in March of 2020.

As brand marketers, we are similarly trying to navigate our way to guiding our brands in the most uncertain of business environments. Like most of us, your brand team is likely grappling with what actions to take to keep growth on track. The question for all of us becomes, how do we most effectively deal with this unique uncertainty?

A customer-centric focus has been a core approach of brands for a long time. Even with the sudden jolts we’ve experienced in 2020, or rather, especially because of them, we believe marketers should double down on customer-centric strategies for the remainder of 2020 and beyond.

So how can you stay close to the rapidly changing attitudes, behaviors, and preferences of your customers during this time, and especially with some level of social distancing likely to be the new norm in the foreseeable future?

Here are 4 ways for your brand to stay laser-focused on customer needs and drive brand growth, even in this challenging business environment:

1. Map the most compelling brand messages for today’s needs.

Customer journey work is often considered to be highly strategic and time consuming. Using an agile and virtual Holistic Journey approach, you can quickly identify and map the most relevant brand messages to the correct customer touchpoints to deepen engagement.

2. Innovate quickly and wisely.

In these complex times, bringing a new idea to market needs to be done just right. Your brand shouldn’t sacrifice deep customer insights while accelerating the development timelines. Our new Innovation Sprint approach has been developed to keep up with changing customer needs, while reducing innovation development from months to weeks using a virtual team collaboration methodology.

3. Revisit your targeting strategies.

Targeting personas may not have changed completely in the past few months. However, understanding how they have evolved, and how this influences your brand’s targeting strategy, is a quick and simple way to maintain relevance. Many of our clients are updating their personas using agile and virtual qualitative research to increase their targeting precision given current evolving behaviors.

4. Check your brand’s positioning with customers.

Based on changing customer needs, your brand positioning may need to evolve. Virtual co-creation sessions with your brand team and customers allows you to incorporate current need states into brand re-positioning if necessary.

 

A customer-centric focus has been at the core of approach brands for a long time. Even with the sudden jolts we’ve experienced in 2020, or rather, especially because of them, we believe marketers should double down on customer-centric strategies for the remainder of 2020 and beyond.”

 

As this year proves to be one of the most complex and uncertain business environments in recent memory, gaining insights on how to be as customer-centric as possible will ensure your brand is a winner in 2020 and beyond.

Want to discuss how to keep your brand customer-centric in 2020?

Contact Us


Discover why having a customer-centric strategy is at the core of a brand’s success both in the near-term and for the long run. Download our eBook.

Discover why having a customer-centric strategy is at the core of a brand’s success both in the near-term and for the long run. Download our ebook.