With every new financial year, we get the chance to look back, assess the recent hits and the misses and use the insights to build a stronger year. With as happening a year as the last one, we have a lot to sift through in order to set the correct focus for the coming year. So, here are 5 business lenses that I think could be best used to set our focus for this year.
- Retention – Being able to retain clients & partners is anyway a crucial part of an organisation’s business goals, but it gets a special mention considering the recent years the world has had. Many businesses took huge hits and with things slowly opening up, it’s important for us to remember the partners that stuck with us through it all. It doesn’t just allude to good ethical practice but also makes for stronger partnerships which together garner very tangible results.
- Redefine your Business Goals – Given how the pandemic has significantly altered the market situations and consumer behaviour, among other things, it is highly imperative that business leaders go back to the drawing boards and map out how they’d like this to be reflected in their business goals. For instance, with digital seeing a steep uptick, SoCheers took the opportunity to explore niche divisions like social listening with our newly introduced Data Intelligence and Analytics (DIA) division, and we intend to further build on it this year. DIA’s goals would hereby include mapping the digital terrain to figure out need gaps and our role in filling them.
- Emerging Markets in Focus – Along with the growing internet penetration in the tier 2-3 cities, the pandemic led several typically offline preferring consumer groups to build a certain trust in digital processes and increased their social media usage, which has opened up newer markets for brands and agencies to target. With as diverse a consumer base as this, each and every market segment needs to be catered to for maximum reach and impact, especially when opinion leaders and trendsetters alike are cropping up from all parts.
- Personalization is Key – Working in a digital agency, our communication needs to reach millions of people online, but when the content is filtered to reach the larger segment of the audience sometimes the relevancy of it may get lost. We have to craft campaigns that are not only relevant to the brand but also for the audiences. If you want to stand out in 2022, you need to personalise your communication, which means more specific & less retrofitting content. Relevance of the content is as important as the overall reach. This will aid in differentiating your brand from the crowd during a consumer’s online purchase journey.
- Short Form Content Is King – The fact that all the major social media players introduced their dedicated short form video feature in the last year to much popularity, like Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts, etc., and they were successfully followed by several startups like MX TakaTak, Moj, Josh and many more, shows audience’s affinity towards crisp video content. Moreover, last year saw some brands playing with the idea of brand integrations on these platforms, which is fast becoming a strong trend to follow. So, it makes sense to find new and innovative ways to integrate short-form video content into your business’s marketing strategy. It is one of the most entertaining and engaging ways to connect with the social media audience and it also opens up a path to brand and influencer collaborations.
Article is authored by Randal Gomes, Head – Business Development, SoCheers.
