It happens more often than you think. Seemingly successful businesses, even market segment leaders, experience customer-driven reversals and become nonexistent. BlockBuster Video and Toys R Us are two prime examples of organizations that became irrelevant. They lost touch with customer buying trends and the technology that enabled those trends. They remained brick and mortar companies when their customers were shopping online. Staying relevant during change is an existential task. What about your business? Do you know how to stay relevant in a changing business environment?
Business environments constantly evolve, but COVID-19-influenced changes and disruptions are unprecedented. Supply chain shortages, the Great Resignation, and lockdowns changed how we all live. Staying relevant in this environment can be challenging, and knowing your customers and prospects is essential. Staying nimble with a flexible approach to marketing, messaging, operations, and maintaining a communicative workplace helps attract and retain the creative talent needed to be relevant.
Specifics include:
- Stay Close to Your Customers. Whether your customers are consumers or businesses, it’s essential to know their current needs and preferences. Understanding how they are consuming is important, but more importantly, know-how and where they are communicating. Understanding these elements will allow you to engage with your customer base and create appropriate marketing and customer service strategies.
- Stay Closer to Your Employees. Your team is your most valuable resource. It’s imperative that you remain relevant to them, particularly during this time of labor shortages. Workforce values have changed since the pandemic. Competitive pay is important, but flexibility, growth, and advancement opportunities are now key loyalty (and recruiting) factors.
- Refresh Your Brand. Even if you are at the top of your game, it is essential you periodically reintroduce your brand to the market. Uber is one of the premier ride-sharing organizations. However, during the pandemic, it saw an opportunity to introduce a new service to a changing market. Leveraging its network of drivers and technology, it launched Uber Eats and has become a player in the food delivery service. Always be looking for ways to reinvent your business to remain relevant.
- Review Marketing Channels. How and where you broadcast your marketing message has never been as complicated as it is today, with a plethora of social media sites and ad opportunities that exist. Ask yourself; are you on the same channels as your customers, are you actively engaging with them, how effective are your ad campaigns, and how are you dealing with customer service and support? These are key elements in maintaining relevance with existing clients and developing a sense of relevance with the market in general.
- Consider Exploring Partnerships. Partnerships are an effective way to expand your brand, bring added value to your existing customer base, reach new prospects, and “share” relevance. Partnerships that are well thought out between complementary companies can envigorate both parties and present a more relevant profile. Small businesses can benefit from working with a network of other small business partners.
If relevancy at your firm is an issue, contact Southern California’s trusted business advisors at William Rogers Company. If you are interested in a candid, straightforward evaluation and actionable steps, contact us today, and let’s take the first step – 888- 297-3321.