Business Relevancy in a Dynamic Consumer Landscape
The online sphere is a continuously moving beast, and as consumers and influencers alike adapt to new and more exciting ways to communicate, many platforms fail to keep pace and soon drop off the popularity list.
If Twitter has taught us anything this year already, it’s that relevancy matters! With new sign-ups for the company down 20% YoY, unengaged customers at an all-time high and the company laying-off a significant amount of their staff; it’s safe to say that Twitter is struggling to stay relevant.
How do you steer clear of the ‘Irrelevant Bucket’? We explore five actionable ways you can keep your content, website, albeit your whole company fresh in order to remain fierce in this dynamic online scene.
1. Keep that finger on the pulse
Often a saying that gets thrown around alot these days, keep your finger on the pulse is generally something that means absolutely nothing to some people. However, when it comes to business, it’s absolutely imperative. Essentially what it means is, don’t get stuck in the age old “well, that’s how we’ve always done it” mentality. Consumers’ needs and wants are forever changing, so in order to remain relevant we suggest changing or adapting with them.
From refreshing your website, revamping the look & feel of your social platforms, investing in beautiful photography to showcase your products or telling your story in a way that appeals to a certain demographic of consumers; there are plenty of ways to adapt to your market.
HOT TIP: Focus on your customer (all shapes & sizes), your competition, your industry and your company. Each area will tell a different story – find the gaps, understand your unique selling points and utilise this data to improve.
2. Prediction vs Experience
Whilst having all this data is great, don’t just go guns for leather and completely change everything straight away – the key is to test and learn…and then test again.
One of the key ways you can adapt to the market, is by seeing what works best for your business. What works for Coca Cola, Apple or even your local homewares store, may not necessarily work for your company. It’s a process to find your sweet spot. Just remember, your sweet spot today, may not necessarily be your sweet spot tomorrow – so try something new, test and learn….and then test again! You can test almost anything you can measure – conversions on site, foot traffic in-store, ad clicks, sign-ups and so on, you’re only limited by your imagination.
HOT TIP: Start with a hypothesis e.g. Implementing a daily blog will improve organic traffic to the website. Then prove your hypothesis right or wrong. Have a baseline metric i.e. website traffic, and see if it improves over time. Regardless of whether your hypothesis is right or wrong, it doesn’t matter – it all leads to discovery.
3. Hundo P
Do you even know what a Dab is? Neither, but all the kids are doing it. I’m going to be honest with you, now stick with me on this one – not knowing what a Dab is, highlights the fact that one of the best resources for understanding the current world we live in, is to learn from those who are much younger than us…maybe a lot younger than us.
Seriously though, the appeal of the millennials are that they’re driving digital change. iPad classes, BYOT, coding, snaps, pings and more – get with the times and start speaking the language HUNDO P FR (100% For Real).
Of course, this doesn’t mean implementing all the weird and out-there ideas they come up with, what you can do is learn from their mentality. Why things go viral is not something that can be formulated – things just go viral, the right amount of momentum starts on something different, funny or exciting and people interact with it. Think about how you can get the momentum rolling to get people to interact with you or your brand.
HOT TIP: Adopt an influencer’s attitude or just adopt an influencer. Millennials learn from their peers, they look up to YouTube stars, snap their friends and text each other from across the room. How can this ‘digital community’ mentality improve your business model?
4. If you’re bored, they’re bored
Simplest tip of all. If you’re struggling to stay awake when reading your own content, the consumer will struggle too. If you find it difficult or clunky when navigating your own website, the consumer will too. If you find your images are hard to view or you get annoyed when they render too slow, the consumer will have that experience too.
HOT TIP: Not rocket science. You or people within your company are the best litmus test…gotta love free feedback!
5. Be genuine
In the big bad world of business, consumers appreciate genuineness. Whilst staying relevant, you also need to stay true to your core values as a business. Understanding the ever-changing landscape, allows your business to stay relevant – understanding gaps within your business, allows for improvement and growth.
HOT TIP: Don’t enter a channel to serve the landscape, enter a channel to delight your consumers. If you start a YouTube channel for example, ensure your videos directly relate to your end game – conversions, sales, profit, engagement, traffic etc.
It’s not easy keeping your company fierce and relevant. Luckily with eWAY, we take care of payments, so you can focus on growing your business. We’re recognised within the payments industry as a market leader in providing technical innovation, a robust infrastructure and best-in-class customer support. To get started today with Australia and New Zealand’s leading credit card payment solution, call us on 1800 10 65 65, enquire online or get started with same day setup today.
Subscribe to updates
Get the latest news and payment insights from Eway hot off the press.