….And also what happened to Primark?

When the facts change, I change my mind is an oft-quoted phrase, and have facts ever changed as quickly as they have in the past 12 months?

From temporary lockdowns to permanent shutdowns, it is still unclear exactly what the new ‘facts’ of living in a post-Covid world will look like.

With that in mind, now is a good time for businesses of all sizes to re-examine their direction of travel. Will film studios now skip the cinemas for streaming? And is the high street now truly dead?

If so, then e-commerce will have finally won the battle it has been dominating for the past decade-or-so. And that means businesses need to start taking e-marketing seriously….

Look at Primark. Great shop, fantastic brand, loyal customer base. But the company’s online strategy? Stuck in the past. And not even the recent pre-Covid past.

Though things will return to a reality closer to the one before 2020, it will never be exactly the same. Try to plan ahead and work out what this will mean for you in terms of a strategy that can work.

1- Consider E-commerce as an integral part of your business.

Primark lost £430m of sales during lockdown with 11 stores open 24 hours, at the end of last year, to try to make up for the loss and is now shut again. Often questioned for not having plans to sell online or have an e-commerce site retail consultant Graham Soult pre-Covid had stated: “While the high-street business is thriving and growing, Primark can make a convincing case of “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”. Well, it now undoubtedly ‘broke’ so this could be a good time to change things. Even if we were to go back to in-store shopping, undoubtedly e-commerce will never lose its grip again so it’s worth investing in this side of your business if you haven’t already.

2- Plan your social media posts

Plan your social media posts now so that you can advertise your product and hit the ground running for when sales increase. What tools are you tempted to try out?

3- Consider contextual forms of advertising

Consider contextual forms of advertising that appear as a natural continuation of your customer’s journey. Our proprietary technology offers the insight necessary for you to know when your audience is searching for something aligned to your product, even geolocation wise making the search more productive for all…check it out -> www.vertismedia.com

4-Create engaging content

The first step to getting content right is to ask yourself:

• What do you spend the most time doing online?
• How long do you think typical users spend online every day?

Recent studies show that on average consumers spend 8 hours or more a day engaging with digital content. Content is EVERYWHERE…it’s at the heart of every internet journey.

SO

What does online content mean to you?
How many of these would you included in your content strategy?

• text
• audio
• video
• photos
• images
• graphics
• animations

5-Think about integrating 3D/ AR elements to your strategy.

According to global augmented reality statistics, there will be about 1.96 billion mobile AR users by 2021 and 2.4 billion users by 2023. A BRP report showed that nearly 50% of consumers were more likely to buy products from retailers that were also providers of AR experiences. When customers experience advertised products in context, by placing three-dimensional (3D) holograms of the products in their physical surroundings this AR-enabled product reduces the effort required to create purchase-related imagery. Where customers are increasingly distant when it comes to the purchasing context, AR makes it easier to imagine the product.

Which of these 5 points have you already integrated in your strategy?

We’d love to know.

Image from The Times.