How Did Beyonce Stay Relevant Through Decades?
What Your Business Can Learn From Her Success?
Your business is relevant today, but will it still be the case years, months, weeks, or even days from now? Unless you invest in keeping up or being ahead of changes, it is more likely that your company will lose its relevance. Keeping up with changes can be done in multiple ways. For example; investing time and capital in innovation, rebranding, and re-strategizing. The key, however, is to always keep an eye out for new trends and being one of the first adopters OR being the leader in new trends.
As an example, I will use a non-traditional entity as an example; Beyonce, a personal brand.
I was intrigued by the level of relevance, power, status, and overall value her name and presence held after decades. Her counterparts have been forgotten, fallen from grace, and lost relevance but she remains standing.
Naturally, as a marketer, I studied and observed her career and came up with 4 prominent and effective ways Beyonce managed to remain relevant.
1.Quality Products Speak for Themselves
For the purpose of relating my findings to a marketer or business owner, think of Beyonce as an entertainment company; Beyonce Incorporated. The products and services provided by Beyonce are songs, tours, merchandise, movie appearances, performances, and more.
Beyonce Inc.’s products speak for themselves. The tours, the music, and the performances are amongst some of the greatest.
For decades, Beyonce has provided quality entertainment that has created loyalty, trust, reliability, and a position of superiority in the minds of consumers, peers, and competitors.
When looking at Beyonce’s peers and those that started in the entertainment industry with her, you can see that they were not able to stay relevant or gain the same legendary and iconic status Beyonce gained. Why? Because they failed to consistently deliver quality content, or their customer service was not satisfying, resulting in a ruined reputation and lost trust.
If, as a company, you are not providing quality products and customer service, it will be hard to gain relevance, let alone stay relevant.
That is the foundation of any company. Unless that is established, no amount of marketing can keep a company relevant or afloat for a long period of time.
2. Innovate, Collaborate, Diversify
Great products are fundamental to be presently relevant. However, consumers have a short attention span. Their attention is constantly shifting to new trends, new technology, new products, etc. What do you do to effectively stay relevant?
Innovate
Constantly work towards innovation. What is popular or needed today may not be tomorrow. This is a concept Beyonce Inc understood. Following Beyonce’s entertainment career, you can see the change in the way she delivers her products. Her performances are grander, using modern technology to package her talent in an unforgettable mesmerizing customer experience. Her style is different and she has experimented in various genres and industries.
Ideally, as a company, you want to be ahead of innovation or right beside it. You want to be the trendsetter or a follower, ahead of the wave or surfing it, but never behind trends or you will get left behind and that’s how you lose relevance.
The way you innovate as a company is by investing time in research to:
Find new and more efficient ways to solve old problems.
Find new and more efficient ways to solve current and known problems.
Find an efficient way to solve unknown problems.
Find ways to solve future problems.
Let us have a quick look at the beauty industry for a simple example of an innovation that solves an old problem in a new and efficient way.
Problem/Need: Women and men want fuller and more dramatic eyelashes.
Common/Current Solution: Gluing on eyelash extensions. A tedious and hard process to perfect.
New and efficient solution: Magnetic eyelash extensions. The process of applying magnetic eyeliner that quickly attracts and locks in eyelash extensions in desired places within seconds.
Let’s have one more example, but this time within the architecture or tech industry.
Future Problem/Need: Global warming resulting in an increased body of water and less land. This is resulting in limited land to build homes for a growing population.
Solution: Underwater houses & infrastructure with water-resisting architectural technology that prevents buildings from caving into the ocean current.
Collaboration & Diversity
Collaboration is a great way to reach different markets, potential customers, and simply bring more attention to your company and brand.
This collaboration strategy, in my opinion, plays a big part in why Beyonce’s name is still so prominent and continues to gain value. Her talent is great, and her new sound resonates with the younger generation, but she knows who to attach herself to and collaborate with to keep her name afloat.
She picks one current artist who has the most popular song(s) and jumps on a remix. One great example is her recent collaboration with female rapper, Megan The Stallion, on the remix to the song ‘Savage’.
Her most current album was centered around the Afrobeat genre, a genre originating from West Africa that has been making waves globally. In that album she featured some of that genre’s hottest artists, resulting in an incredible buzz from that community.
Looking at it from a business perspective, she successfully entered a new market with that album and reached a new audience.
How can you apply this technique to your business? Here are a couple of examples of successful B2B collaborations.
Macdonalds and Oreos
H&M and Balmain
MacDonalds’ Oreo Blizzard attracts Oreos fans and consumers, Oreos now has a new way for its customers to consume its products, and it is easily accessible and convenient.
H&M is a high street brand and Balmain is a designer brand, their collaboration had allowed them to tap into each other’s market successfully as this collaboration sold out globally.
3. Reputation, Personability & Relatability Creates Loyalty
Beyonce is known for keeping her name out of the mud. She avoids bad press, staining drama, and a problematic entourage. She remains tasteful and keeps a clean image by displaying a warm, family-oriented front.
This has positioned her as the “perfect being” in the eyes of her most loyal consumers. Everyone has heard of the BeeHive. Anyone who has ever spoken against Beyonce Inc. has felt its painful sting.
Any negative comment made regarding Beyonce Inc. or its shareholders will be instantly debunked by the loyal followers. To the extent that many fear or avoid saying nothing but good things about the entity called Beyonce. If not for the intense connection and trust these loyalists felt for Beyonce Inc., it is very possible that the company would have been ripped apart by the media.
Having loyal customers who will vouch for you and promote your products and business for free is the most successful and effective marketing strategy. But it is built through trust.
So what have we learned from Beyonce Inc.’s success and relevance?
Create trust by providing quality products that perform every time and providing excellent customer service.
Invest in innovation, collaborate and align with other businesses to tap into their market, diversify your product lines.
Avoid bad press, drama, and always display a clean and positive front.
