How to monetize on your brand communications during and after the pandemic?

• Shruti Kaushik, A LinkedIn branding expert, Featured Blockchain, Crypto, Artificial Intelligence and Data Science writer, highlights how getting the messaging right to the target audience is the main objective to pursue for companies at present.
• She further writes how this can only be done by developing brand strategies that would use storytelling as a tool.

The impact of a street virus from China is felt everywhere in the world today. Healthcare systems are uprooted from within, economies are killed, and markets are torn. And, due to the worldwide shutdown, businesses advanced straight from relevant to irrelevant within days.

But the biggest change noted during this time was “consumer behaviour”. A dramatic fall in customer spending pushed businesses into a “crisis marketing” zone. A stage that is more likely to stay for a few more years now.

The advent of a new normal--Since essential buying started dominating consumer behaviour, companies instantly migrated to a creative disruption stage to secure their market presence. Which is a good thing, since this unfortunate timing proved to be a gateway of successes for numerous businesses.

So, what now? Getting the messaging right to the target audience is the main objective to pursue for companies at present. This can only be done by developing brand strategies that would use storytelling as a tool.

How “storytelling” as a base for brand communications can help companies gain more clients and customers?

For best understanding, let’s use my recent use case as an example---In view of the ongoing uncertain times, I replaced the general brand communication strategy with an organic selling strategy that emphasised more into targeting inbound leads. This had to be done because the need was to create a demand.

How did this convert crisis into a pool of opportunities? Storytelling might appear to be quite a basic tool, but this simple method helped my clients’ businesses achieve more than 2.5 M organic views, gain approx 350+ brand enquiries and around 100+ collaboration requests. All thanks to Linkedin marketing and select content distribution techniques.

A takeaway from this use case--Storytelling as a medium of marketing after the pandemic?

A mix and match of content and social selling techniques can do wonders for your clients right now and for the years to come. It should be noted that this change is not temporary. This sudden remodelling of businesses is here to stay. Which means, that if companies now have to survive in the “new normal”, then content and branding strategies have to be well-adjusted in accordance with this change.

How can you do it for your clients or for your own brand?

1. Create a series of mini-case studies.
2. Create short posts of about 100-150 words on how you helped your clients, your expertise and your approach in business.
3. Share it on all social channels with Linkedin as a must (80% of business owners are here on this platform today).
4. Engage with the audience and create a loyal community of followers.
5. Create podcast sessions and divide them into short clips. This will help the customer relate more to the brand.
6. Conduct some PR activities. Due to digital inflation, the demand for PR has multiplied by 3 folds.

This was all about how brands can leverage from social selling during these times. Moving towards the industries that are booming right now (in terms of both employment and investments) due to technical shortcomings exposed by the pandemic.

New Opportunities that are hidden in this transformed era of businesses

Since the pandemic just rocketed around 20% of businesses online and introduced a new digital revolution, disruptive technologies like Blockchain, Artificial Intelligence, Internet of Things (IoT) and VR-AT have emerged tremendously well.

As a brand strategist and a content manager for a select few Blockchain and AI-based companies under the Government of India, I have witnessed this change firsthand. The pandemic shredded off the entire technological setup followed in every country, and now Governments and even the World Economic Forum, are slowly moving towards full implementation of Blockchain across the entire public sector.

This whole transition from traditional technological setup to a disruptive technological setup will increase employments by a huge number by 2025. Opportunities in the Blockchain and AI sector are going to increase, as companies are experiencing an expansion of both user base and investment interests.

New generation of entrepreneurs can move into this industry and explore flourishing possibilities that are going to rise in the coming decade. Apart from this, blockchain and AI-based companies can leverage greatly from this digital remodelling, provided brand communications is set right.

Final Thoughts- It is true that businesses have become stressed as consumer behaviour has changed dramatically. But if observed optimistically, a new demand has emerged across industries and brands. This new gap is where miracles of the following decade are slated to happen.

- By Shruti Kaushik, A LinkedIn branding expert, Featured Blockchain, Crypto, Artificial Intelligence and Data Science writer