Brand Planning For An Unplannable Future
Planning has always been a key part of my success - in business and in life. In fact, most of my colleagues, clients, business partners, friends, and family have referred to me as a serial planner. AND Right now, I am a somewhat stressed out planner.
As I reflect on the past year, each week seemed to have brought with it a new challenge or reality in my daily business life, forcing myself, the team and our clients to pivot, ideate, try new approaches, grab a glass of wine, pivot again, and then start all over again.
It was exhausting, but brilliant.
Here is what I learned: Now more than ever, planning for your brand needs to be the key tenant for driving your success. A bit contradictory, right? How do we plan for an unplannable future? And why should we?
The way brands survive and grow is through smart, creative, elastic planning. Planning is key. No matter what business you are in, planning is the cornerstone for your growth -- today and in the future.
But, you must change how to approach and view planning. Give up the 3 to 5 year master planning process that focuses on 18 – 36 unmovable tactics that are tweaked based on sales. This is a relic. Instead, become re-grounded in your brand’s mission, develop engagement strategies that showcase your value proposition, and be centered in listening to and learning from your customers. These steps will evolve your planning into what it should be: a living, breathing multi-channel approach that provide you a smart, effective, growth-driving modern marketing platform to let your brand shine and flourish. This shift also comes with a side benefit of happier, more engaged team to take your brand into the future.
As we move into 2021, we at Brilliantbox have aligned on a few key tenants to help our clients and our brand grow with the below approach in mind: We will:
Embrace business challenges to REIMAGINE and REENERGIZE your/brand. Each of our brands have a core value and purpose; at our essence, we are solving a need for our clients. What happens when that need changes? We embrace and evolve. We plan for changes, try new approaches, adjust and keep moving forward. A great example are restaurants who pivoted after dine-in-service was halted. Many continued to offer pick-up, delivery; a few adventurous ones began to offer in-home meal prep kits or even an in-home, chef-lead, dining experience.
Discover your BRAND again. Traveling was never about the trip, it was about the emotional connection prior to and during the experience, as well as the memories created from it. In the past few months, the travel industry has taught us a great lesson: Rediscover the reasons your customers use your brand and reengage to remind and reassure them of your core values, services and offerings. The industry has pivoted to remind us how important travel is to our mental and emotional health and are preparing us to reengage with the full industry as soon as we can. The biggest and most important hurdle to ensure relevance and enable growth is to rediscover and update the direction, mission and value propositions you are offering. This reset must also be at the center of your planning.
Run towards the UNKNOWN. It is simple that no one can predict what will happen in the next few months. Murder hornets anyone? This is actually a great opportunity to try new approaches, test new services and processes, and to accept the new. Movie studios have been showing us how to test and learn to run towards the future and ensure continued growth regardless of the unknown. This is where a new approach to planning helps you achieve and maintain forward momentum. Adjust the timing and frequency of your planning. Focus on a creating a directional plan for growth and engagement, set quarterly goals and metrics. Include quarterly activation plans that allow for testing and new approach; plans that can be updated/adjusted as needed based on customer adoption, industry changes, and most importantly your sales and revenue objectives.
Re-engage with CUSTOMERS. Loyal customers and clients are more than a transaction. They should be valued as a member of your team and treated as such. Brands that are thriving have been using non-traditional (a word I hope we all stop using in 2021) engagement avenues from live-streaming to bespoke delivery to engage with their loyal and cherished customers. Engagement with your customers is more important than ever; use conversations and take the time to truly listen to your customers. The insights you will gain from these conversations will inform your planning process and enable you to keep your customers at the center of your brand.
And … we will plan, pivot, and plan again throughout the next year. All with an eye towards success for our brand and yours.
Modern brands that are poised to meet and address this transformative time will not only survive but thrive in whatever reality comes our way. There is no right or wrong formula on how a brand should plan its marketing and communications. However, your planning needs to be authentic and reflective of your brand and your core mission. Be open to evolving your planning approach so it will work for you.
Happy planning and call me or the team if you need to talk!