Are we ever going to achieve getting back to normal? And what will the new normal look like in the next 5 years? Marketers today are minutely planning strategies of how to sustain and keep it going for their businesses. There is so much constant ambiguity towards customer approach, satisfaction and longevity. Nothing is constant except constant change. Marketers have to be adaptable and flexible towards marketing experiments cause you never know what idea may just work for your brand's growth.

As almost the entire world is getting Covid-19 vaccines and Governments are now opening up markets there may be a chance that things may get back to normal. Yet it's too early to predict depending on the uncertainties of the variant and country laws. How can one draw and analyse a marketing future for a brand around this?

We have come up with a conducive yet non-exhaustive list of consumer behaviours that can help marketers strategise their plans for the future.

E-Commerce:-
For now, people have learnt how to live, work, shop, eat and play from their homes. E-Commerce has helped people get things at their doorsteps by browsing through a variety and wide range of options online. Left alone Amazon accounted for a 26 per cent hike in sales in the very first quarter of 2020 compared to its sale in 2019 during the same period. Today the millennial generation prefers shopping on sites like Instagram only based on influencer recommendations. Statistics show that the growth of digital media was super fast in just 8 weeks compared to the last 5 years of its inception. The entire intent to go to a store and shop has significantly declined. The marketer has to get a stronghold on consumers changing behaviours and implement newer tracking skills. The entire shopping journey on an e-commerce platform has to be enjoyable

E-Services:-
Unlike products, services need much more communication to sell and market their brands to their consumers. Since services are intangible, customer emotions have to come across in the right direction to the right target audience at the right time. A lot of cross-selling can help marketers reach out to their specific target market. For example, a hospital providing a service of online consultation can also cross-sell healthy food products on their website along with medicines. The best part is that today customers are comfortable having everything done digitally. They have trust in the systems. Just like banking services and digital payments becoming so common. Cashless as a concept is something that is surely here to stay.

Entertainment:-
It can never be all work and no play especially when you are at home 24x7. During time outs we all needed our daily doses of entertainment. It could be either Movies, TV Shows, Cooking and posting on social media, Gaming, Listening to music or podcast. These few services did boom during Covid-19. After all, people still needed to hear and feel people in different forms. It is most likely that people will now choose to watch movies at home rather than in the cinema hall. One of the most trending online games The Fortnite hosted a concert party online which was attended by 12.3 million gamers. This trend is going to be staying in future.

Medical Services:-
Without everyone having much of a choice the demand for Medical Services rose at an alarming rate during these trying times. Though providing adequate medical services was the biggest challenge for many countries, being the world struck by a pandemic itself was enough to attract patients towards hospitals. For the future hospitals and health care providers will have to work on their web portals having a holistic web portal with all their services including emergency helplines and chat boxes. People have become much more conscious about their health and a robust health care service provider will be the only way to make permanent customers. Cross-selling, add on and offers work wonders when it comes to this sector.

Social Connectivity:-
Man is a social animal, we need to be socially connected to help during times like these. Either to provide medical aid, financial aid, educational aid or help a friend with an investment they need for an existing business or a start-up. Creating these networks helps us form an ecosystem of connectivity. Social Media platforms enable us and give us a lot of options to create our own sociological and economical network. It's incredible how we are planning the future with such an intercity when the present itself is so ambiguous. Yet we encourage all marketers to be ambitious. Few pointers to keep at the back of your head while creating a future brand strategy.

• Conceptualize- Constant updates of the brand's vision and realistic mission about changing times.
• Content and visuals - Have to be based on research and relevance. Use analytical tools to get updated data
• Product positioning and pricing- Flexible and can be tweaked as per market conditions.
• Social Media Awareness and Media activations- Almost the whole world is on social media today just focus on what your consumers would like to hear from you.

Before we move on to the next normal a big shout out to all the marketers out there for putting their grey cells into their brand. We as a civilisation are now adapted to numerous changes and so we are sure you have become even more agile and focused on planning the new future for your brand. Embrace the change and challenge yourself the future will be yours!

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