How to be Relevant in a Post-COVID World

As a business person, it does not matter whether you blame most of what happened, and is happening, on the virus or on the measures that have been taken. You have to deal with it. One thing is for certain: The business world will adapt and things will not be the same as they were before. This kind of has a bad connotation, but I refrain strictly to the business side of things. Things changing can provide tremendous opportunities for the businesses that know how to be relevant.

Being relevant is the air your business breathes. You cannot go without it and whether you always had that full gasp of air or had trouble breathing, things are changing up – depending on your branch how severely may differ.

In short, relevance is the full experience of a product, candidate, or cause that you can relate to. That experience changes minds and behavior (and hopefully sustains that change). By being relevant your change a mind into buying a product, voting for a certain candidate, donating to charity, etc.

By being relevant you show respect for the people we are trying to reach by showing them we understand what is important to them. That makes it easier to get their attention, but also encourages them to consider what you have to say or sell and to change their behavior. To do all that means you have to change as your audience does. One thing is for certain, current times are changing clients, and that means you need to change.

Affecting behavior is more important than Awareness. Here is where most companies fail; a lot of marketing today has become an exercise in risk reduction. Firms are doing everything they can not to seize the future, but to keep something terrible from happening. That is not the way to win the hearts and minds of people you are trying to reach, and certainly no way to be relevant.  

There are certain dimensions of relevance.

1. By segmentation

If you don’t segment, you don’t connect. Dividing your market by very specific categories, like: age, income, gender, education, geography, life experience, interests, etc.

When it comes to finding your audience, identify your core constituents and move forward from there.

2. Through intangibles

The main goal here is to forge emotional connections. Emotions can be subdivided into four categories.

- The way you think

Your customers can be concerned about specifications of a product - what the price is, where he can find it, etc. As you can see, these are the more rational appeals.

- Appealing trough the senses

How does the product make it “feel right” for them? It might also fit into a daily schedule or habit.

- Appealing though community

People like buying products or services that can be associated with them in a way that puts them in a social spot they like to be in. The “social confirmation” plays big part in people’s lives and many successful brands appeal to them through that way. Think about Harley Davidson, for example. There are dozens of motor cycle brands, but when you’re on a Harley, you feel free, an adventurer with a devil may care attitude. It’s that status of the bike that tells to your social community who you are.

- Appealing through values

By connecting your product or service with principles that are very important to your audience. Principles with faith-based elements, or are more of a moral or ethical kind.

3. Through circumstances

By creating content you need to keep the end user in mind. Choosing the right words and pictures on your website, how you communicate with them on social media, etc.

You want to position your message in a way that is consistent and it amplifies what you want to communicate, in the right context. You need to know exactly how you reach out and touch someone.

Whether you have, lost, or never had relevance, you need to be constantly refreshing your market knowledge. Talk to customers. What do they like? What is changing in their lives? What barriers do they (now) experience? What don’t they like about your offering? Do this regularly to remain having an up-to-date insight in your customers and market. If your relevance efforts aren’t changing and maintaining behavior, they are a failure.

Always study the macro trends (the big changes in the market place) and the micro trends (what is changing in your industry in general and your business in particular. In the end all you want is to affect someone’s behavior. It is not about how much press releases you can get out; how clever your ads are or number of hits on your website. It is about getting people to come over to your point of view (and stay there).

If you lost relevance, the first thing you need is to accept that you lost it and start over by constantly refreshing your market intelligence. Create systems that will keep you from losing track of what’s happing in the market place, and monitor those. You can even go up to customers you’ve lost, apologize for disappointing them and point out the details you improve in the future. Your goal is to get your market share back, but be careful not to overpromise. Don’t disappoint the customer twice.

The goal of relevance is to create a loyal base of customers, who serve as your foundation. To achieve this, you need to maximize your relevance in their lives by researching and applying certain ways of communication in order for them to find that special value your product or service provides them and enriches their lives with. Therefore, you cannot try to be all things to all people, because it’s impossible to be a product that everybody needs. Even water comes in different forms, like sparkling, bottled, or flavored. Besides that, you run the risk or looking ridiculous if you try to appeal to everyone. Reaching the widest possible audience requires you to be extremely bland and that makes it impossible to create emotional connections and therefore you cannot be relevant.

As industries vary, it is your mission to find out who your audience is and segment them. What people are thinking, how your industry is changing, how COVID affects their lives, how to appeal to them, and come with meaningful insights how to communicate your value and relevance to them. In a world where everything is being commoditized, the only thing that is truly going to provide competitive advantage is your unique value. In order to be relevant, you need to appeal to your audience so they can relate to that unique value though communication. When done right you change behavior and build loyalty, i.e. you are relevant.

Stefan Kuijer