Driving brand growth in a post-pandemic world

The COVID-19 pandemic flipped the world upside down, forcing us to rethink every aspect of our lives. Everything from shopping and movie theaters to education and baseball games was suddenly…different.

While we were scared, we soldiered on. We accepted this new reality and found ways to adapt our old way of life to help ensure the safety of ourselves and others. However, this wasn’t just limited to individuals—brands needed to reconsider their entire marketing strategy and how to reach consumers in a wildly different environment.

Despite these challenges, many businesses thrived – especially those based mainly online. But we’ve come a long way since 2020, and while COVID isn’t “officially” over, many individuals are returning to their old ways of life. Those brands that saw major market share and revenue increases suddenly began to see significant declines in growth rates. So the question is – how can these brands “re-adapt” to these marketplace shifts and return to the success they saw in the previous two years? DEPT® ’s answer is growth marketing.

Traditionally, brands have siloed their marketing approach. They have invested in both upper-funnel brand awareness to attract new audiences and bottom-funnel performance marketing to drive conversions with audiences who already know them. However, this silo leads to missed connections, lower conversions, and diminishing returns over time. To grow your brand’s presence and drive sustainable growth, you need to go deeper and take a much more comprehensive understanding of the consumer journey experience than you’ve done in the past.

This requires a full-funnel attack to attract new consumers with no knowledge of your brand, educate them through complex buying decisions, know exactly how and where they are searching and learning about your product or service, and ensure you deploy the right message at the perfect time to convert them. So how does your brand accomplish that?

A sound data strategy is the critical foundation of any strong growth marketing approach. You can’t fully understand your customers unless you monitor, store, and analyze insights at every touchpoint at every stage of the buying journey.

Once you have this data, you can begin to build a strategy that will actually be effective – not just throw marketing spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks. These insights will be incredibly helpful as you plan out which specific marketing activities you’ll need to attract new audiences, educate them throughout the consideration stage, and drive conversions. This information will also help you develop creative and messaging that fits cohesively throughout the buying journey and stirs an emotional response within your target personas.

DEPT® has helped several brands deploy a growth marketing approach to reignite momentum and success in a post-lockdown environment.

Online Legal Company
This major legal services client experienced unprecedented demand and growth during the pandemic, but research indicated very little industry growth in 2021 – how could they adapt to reach new heights?

Wine.com
Wine.com faced large fluctuations in demand throughout 2020 – see how we helped them keep up with consumers amid increased competition and advertising prices.

Framebridge
Framebridge needed a full-funnel approach to simultaneously attract new customers, increase intent, and drive purchases while dealing with supply chain challenges and rising costs due to the pandemic.

Interested in learning how DEPT®’s growth strategists can help your brand stay agile and respond to increasing market changes? Reach out today!