by N6A TeamHow Nimble Agencies Can Survive and Thrive
Consolidation is in for businesses and brands amid COVID-19.
The new landscape of the COVID-19 era will bring potentially permanent behavioral and business pattern shifts. Will business leaders revert to their previous practices once they’re able to return to their normal routine? Will there even be normal routines anymore?
A lack of clarity around how businesses need to respond, and how long the restrictions could last, means it’s critical to adopt a proactive stance with expanded services above all else. Clearly it’s up to business leaders to establish what is possible and how to thrive.
Photo by Ivan Samkov from Pexels
1. Providing the Most Value to Customers
This was the number-one mantra in-practice for businesses before the COVID-19 era, and it’s guaranteed to be even more important as the pandemic continues. In fact, it’s more important now to truly dig down into this mantra as more sustainable patterns emerge and companies learn from every possible scenario to sustain growth and maintain ROI for clients.
Consumers want to see brands as a living, breathing organism in the market. They associate enterprises with normalcy, especially if those brands continue to drive results for them. This will force businesses to choose their post-COVID partners more wisely. With budgets shrinking and increasing speed-to-market pressures, brands will assess their collaborators with an eye toward ease-of-execution over anything else. Knowing the breadth of the wide range of in-house services in a single agency can help brands consolidate functions for more streamlined success.
2. People are the Most Important Asset
If businesses want to win, they need the best people standing together to serve customers across all touchpoints. Brand advocacy will help drive future growth as positive information spreads via word-of-mouth on various channels.
This requires business leaders to make whatever sacrifices they need to make. It may sound easier said than done, but targeting the right areas in your business will ease up on making some truly gut wrenching decisions. Expect to run thinner margins, enact travel and hiring freezes, and dial back on meals and consulting costs — especially if it comes with the benefit of team preservation.
3. Embrace Inorganic Growth Opportunities
Superficially it may not seem like it, but now is the time to take even smarter risks towards innovation.
Most businesses have already changed the way they function. The way they service customers, communicate, and engage is much different than a couple of months ago. Technology, communication, the supply chain, education, and many other core parts of the consumer’s daily lives are completely up for grabs. The agencies flexing new functionalities and services will create solutions for clients in brand new areas.
There is an opportunity to innovate and consolidate functions for customers like never before. Now more than ever, there is room to create great opportunities to diversify revenue streams, capabilities and vertical footprints. Quick, previously unorthodox moves now can create sustainability to both serve brands and succeed into the future.