“The pandemic has changed consumer behaviors, some permanently. We have seen a consolidation of shopping trips: in China, for example, the number of transactions in grocery declined by 30 percent during the pandemic, while the average value per transaction increased by 69 percent. In the United States, e-commerce availability and hygiene considerations are increasing store switching behavior, with 17 percent of consumers shifting away from their primary store. Many customers have also tried new omnichannel models: buy online, pick up in store (BOPIS) grew 28 percent year-over-year in February compared with 18 percent in January, and grocery delivery is up by 57 percent. More important, many of these new engagement models are here to stay. Consumers report high intention to continue using models such as BOPIS (56 percent) and grocery delivery (45 percent) after the pandemic.”

With Omnichannel and Digital first approaches, it’s imperative for brands to reimagine content across channels to offer a seamless experience.

Some of the content trends that are emerging to make the customers experience across touch points seamless are:

Personalization

Customers expect personalized messaging from brands to stay connected with brands during these troubled times. Conquer personalization with these five steps:

Collect Data on your customers

Build Personas

Use Dynamic Content

Choose your channel

Use personalized messaging

Gamify your Content

Engage audiences with gamified content. Offer content that increases user engagement. An example of this is Virtual workout offered by Nike China. Nike China activated its digital community by offering virtual workouts and saw an 80 percent increase in weekly active users of its app.

Use Video Conferencing

Businesses can make greater use of video conferencing to bring the in-store experience online. Customers expect to get individual attention and bringing in store experience online is a great way to keep the customers engaged.

Use Innovative techniques

Make use of new technologies to engage users with content that is innovative. Jewelry brand Kendra Scott is tackling that problem by launching a new platform, Virtual Try-On, which uses augmented-reality (AR), machine-learning, and computer-vision techniques.

Create Content for Bots

The use of Chat bots has gone up during the pandemic and brands need to connect with audiences via the bots. Publish content that meets the customers needs requires insights for their top most concerns. Listening to your customers can help understand their fears that can be addressed via chat bots. Additionally product queries can be better answered with a product inquiry bot.