There is a new catchphrase in the business world and it is summoning the attention of business owners and executives – “urgency culture”. It is the belief that everything is a priority and needs to be acted upon immediately. We live in a fast-paced world where we put instant results and gratification first. Added to the mix is the availability of resources and ease of access to them, innovation and technology, and cutthroat competition. The strategies for marketing and sales for businesses are taking the digital and social media route considering that most audiences are actively present in this space. Hence, the need to catch consumers’ attention has driven entrepreneurs to focus on short-term goals to achieve sales conversion.

It is a given those businesses spend a certain amount of their revenue on marketing and advertising strategies. With social media and digital space taking a stronghold of the spotlight, companies have shifted their focus to increasing ad spending in this space over traditional methods. Data suggests that digital advertising in India stands at 33.4% share of spend, second to television which stands at 41.8%. The online space will be the primary medium of marketing for consumer tech and digital-first brands in the coming years. But are these efforts are being done consciously is a question one needs to ponder.

Companies have made it imperative to push strong but temporary marketing campaigns to make sure their products and services reach as many users as possible in a limited period. The engagement and jump in sales observed post such initiatives seem fruitful. The moment such campaigns run their course and business comes back to normal, entrepreneurs are left feeling baffled and unmotivated. Albeit short-term marketing strategies are useful, research shows that the prolonged success of a business is correlated with long-term plans of action and well-defined vision and mission statements.

Apart from affecting business goals, sales, and consumer experience, an urgency culture puts a strain on employee morale and how they relate to the company. When companies push their people to work within strict timelines to produce instant results, it sabotages productivity which leads to burnout. According to the results of Microsoft’s Work Trend Index from 2020, India is the second largest country to face employee burnout at 29%. With the onset of the pandemic, workplace burnout has gotten worse making 41% of Indians surveyed feel that the lines have blurred when it comes to their personal and professional lives.

The end goal of any business is to deliver the best possible product, service, or experience to the consumer. This can be affected if companies focus on temporary strategies and it could potentially deplete the brand value in the eyes of the consumer. The present-day consumer expects quality coupled with quickness when it comes to the experience they want to have while opting for a product or service. In such a scenario, striking balance becomes a key component for the sustenance of business.

Most modern methods of digital marketing stem from a place of urgency. Businesses and brands would want to make their presence felt not realizing that the strategies adopted are counterintuitive. One does not need statistics to validate the same. How many times have you come across an ad playing before a YouTube video starts or pops up while you are scrolling through Instagram only to realize that it is annoying and you subsequently block the company’s ads altogether?

It is those businesses that put in the time and research to understand what value addition they are bringing in for the consumers, invests in quality data and algorithms, generates revenue, and meet their goals consistently. These brands understand that establishing quality followed by efficiency is important. This goes on to reiterate the fact that companies are successful when they place importance and prioritization at the core of their strategy even at the cost of certain short-term goals. This is exemplified by one of the biggest e-commerce websites today – Amazon.

Amazon is the epitome of how putting some short-term strategies on the back burner can prove effective for a brand’s longevity. The company’s approach to targeted ads is reputable. They have made the concept of targeted marketing their own and the results are self-evident. While the e-commerce giant’s first competitors were coming up with marketing methods to push out as many products and services, as fast as possible, the company chose to remain grounded. Amazon worked on unprecedented algorithms and took time to understand and embed segmentation in their processes. Now, most of their early competition has either disappeared or they have been acquired by Amazon. This was made possible because the business decided to leave some immediate goals behind and work on effective long-term plans to make the business model successful.

The key takeaway here is how you can scale your business by preventing urgency culture from seeping into the system and adopting long-drawn-out methods to ensure its success. This happens with a solid investment of time and effort in your brand’s mission and vision statements and core identity. These statements aren’t mere words but seeds that represent the values and principles based on which your business will thrive. With time, these values and principles will turn into strategies that define your company. Although the process seems long and time-consuming, it is a move that will reap perpetual benefits for all the stakeholders invested in your business. Though urgency culture might be appealing, it does not provide strong solutions to your business problems. It helps to take a step back and evaluate your business goals objectively.

At TSMS, we help you identify your business goals and proactively achieve them. Whether it is defining the core values of your organization, carefully crafting your company’s vision and mission statements, devising strategies for maximizing profits, better employee engagement, and continued brand loyalty from consumers, we provide bespoke consulting that will address your needs.