To say that 2020 was a challenging year would be an understatement for most businesses. 2020 was a difficult year for everyone, but it was especially rough for business owners. Enterprise and small companies had to go through significant changes over the past 12 months, trying to find ways to face the challenges thrown their way. Last year, a report revealed 92% of small businesses needed to find a way to reinvent themselves if they wanted to survive the pandemic.

As we accommodate ourselves and our businesses with a new year and a new normal, we can’t help but hope to be able to see the light at the end of the tunnel soon enough. Until this happens, 2021 remains a year of rebuilding yourself and your brand, focusing on a brighter future.

Opportunities should always be leveraged in a business environment, and even more so during tumultuous times, although it may be difficult to see them now. But being able to find and explore new opportunities is what makes a good entrepreneur, right?

To help you in your journey, we have put together a list of actionable advice that you can follow if you want to grow your business not only in 2021 but in a post-pandemic future as well.

Building connections is more important than ever

Building long-lasting relationships are one of the best things entrepreneurs can do for the well-being of their business. This includes relationships with current clients, potential ones, business partners, and employees, as they are all just as crucial for your company.

If you provide reliable services or products and have a strong customer base with whom you have built strong relationships, they will be your customers forever. While large companies sometimes fail to do so, putting customers first is the most efficient way to improve your business. This is especially true for local businesses that rely on the community to be successful.

Consumer trust is going down lately, with only 55% of customers trusting the brands they buy. And, if we take into consideration the fact that consumer acquisition has been on the rise for the past five years, this means there’s a lot of competition you need to deal with. Treating customers like one big part of your family will be quickly noticed and rewarded. The same thing applies regarding your employees, as multiple studies show employee satisfaction grows when meaningful relationships between them and the company.

Use Social Media for Maximum Exposure

Advertising is more important than ever. If you are not online by now, what are you waiting for? Put together a website, hire a good SEO company to help your rank high in consumer searches, and develop social media presence.

As consumers spend more time at home, they have a higher chance of coming across your website rather than finding your physical store, so you need to be where your consumers are. Social media is one of the most critical aspects of marketing in the year 2021 and will continue to be so for many years to come. This is why businesses need to use social media for brand exposure and to create sales.

Paid social media ads are one of the main ways people discover new products, especially when it comes to younger generations. Investing in them is one of the best things you can do for your business.

Besides social media ads, users that frequent social media platforms state they find most of the products and services they use through other people’s profiles. This means it may also be a good idea to focus on influencer marketing as well.

Get to know your core customers

All brands are competing for customers’ attention, so if you want to have a shot at winning, you need to focus on making people develop a genuine interest in what you are delivering. This represents your core customer base, which you need to identify, connect with, and focus your marketing resources.

Every company wishes to appeal to as many demographics as possible, but it is rarely possible that both millennials and seniors will have the same interest in your offerings. This is why you need to be very aware of who your profit-makers are.

Data is your best friend here, as it helps you identify the buyer persona. A complete profile of the buyer persona includes demographics and psychographics, including age, location, gender, and financial status. You also need to understand consumer spending behavior, interests, needs, and aversions. To do so, you need to gather as much data as possible, including internal data about your past and present customers, as well as external data that comes from social media analytics, website traffic, industry research, and so on.

Work on developing a concise pitch

If you are considering using social media to your advantage, you need to focus on the way you deliver your offers. Consumers spend a lot of time on social media, but they rarely have the interest to read extended offers that don’t specifically tell them what they get and what they need to give in return. The key here is to find the proper balance between selling and providing quality content.

If you want to approach people via DM, you need to be aware that people don’t like being overwhelmed with promotional messages. If you have an offer for them, make sure it is presented as soon as possible in the message, as they will most likely not want to spend minutes trying to figure out what they get by associating themselves with you.

This lesson is not only suited for DMs but also for email marketing and traditional pitching. If you want customers to be interested in your product, they need to know quickly what they get, how much they need to pay, and what benefit this product may bring to them.