NEW DELHI: The ongoing Covid2019 crisis and lockdown is a difficult time for brands across the globe. Retail and D2C players are too faced with wide uncertainties as people are not willing to spend much. However, as per the Department of International Trade, UK, this time comes with a silver lining; as the consumers can’t go outside they have a lot of time in hand to explore, and brands, therefore, must pivot their focus from direct sales to focusing on digital customer engagement. 

The department hosted a webinar on Thursday in association with brand advocacy firm Duel, highlighting how brands can utilise this opportunity to keep their user community engaged during the crisis with zero budgets. Speaking on the panel were Duel founder Paul Archer, and lead brand and community consultant Jaclyn Crocker.

As explained by Crocker, consumers of today no longer base their loyalty on price or product but instead on experiences they receive. Therefore, brands should be looking at consumer experience from a holistic perspective and build strong emotional connect with them. For this, brands will have to be very specific about their values, in not only what they stand for but also what they ‘rage against’. 

She elaborated that what distinguishes a great brand from an average brand is its capability to turn consumers into advocates and creating an organic growth channel with minimal ad spends.

“At Duel, we believe that the greatest companies of the next decade will be those who focus on driving advocacy and word-of-mouth from those who love them. Therefore, the brands must be thinking long-term, maintaining a honest and generous outlook towards consumers, investing in remarkable consumer experience by constantly seeking feedback, and building strong networks and communities.” Crocker said. 

She added that consumers today are looking for more transparency from businesses and more human connection. 

She also shared a trick to segment the existing customer base into CRM, customers, loyalists, advocates, and super fans and acting proactively in a different manner for each subset.

She insisted that a brand must be investing in appraising and rewarding its advocates and also shared a formula to calculate the value of an advocate for a brand.

She added that brands can promote advocacy by rewarding the superfans and advocates via discounts, and special experiences. However, if as a brand one has not been giving discounts ever since, it might not be the right time to start doing that. 

In conclusion, she insisted that brands should really be focussing on creating a strong user base that turns into advocates for them for a brighter future.