How has Covid19 impacted marketers’ priorities?

The New York Times recently proclaimed something many of us had already assumed: that the “coronavirus has changed the way we internet.” Our tolerance for screen time has never been higher, and that’s not likely to change. “DJs are throwing virtual parties. Yoga instructors are teaching on Instagram. Chefs are cooking up a storm on Zoom, and even weddings are happening on Facebook live ”

Change isn’t coming; it’s here. COVID-19 has brought it at breakneck speed, and marketers are feeling it. When we leave our houses in the near future, consumerism won’t look the same.

Read more: Customer profitability is an entire business process challenge, say leading experts

New behaviors are being formed which will become permanent and this is redefining how businesses sell, service, engage, market, and retain thier customers. As a result, the earlier definition by brands on customer centricity has changed. The standards of customer engagement have shifted yet again, and marketers need to be at the forefront of this innovation.

As technology drives customer expectations to new heights, marketers have emerged as not just messengers, but as revenue drivers who not only foster meaningful customer relationships but are also now responsible to the organizations to generate revenue and look at profits, much beyond the first purchase. I have never seen CMOs studying P&Ls so closely.

How, then, are marketers navigating these times? Being someone who interacts with CEOs, promoters, board members, and CMOS almost every single day, the conversations have changed drastically.

Listing down top priorities for CMOs as I observe every day:

1.D2C

The contagiousness of Covid-19, and its unrelenting increasing spread, has prompted people to explore online purchasing options for essential products and services, from the safety of their homes. Given that it supports the implementation of social distancing measures due to the limited amount of physical contact involved in availing the same, e-commerce has become the lifeline for consumers under lockdown to fight against the pandemic.

The pandemic has highlighted the glaring need to have the organization ready to be selling online and providing a great experience of doing so. A lot of organizations would earlier pay lip service it, but with no serious efforts are feeling the pinch.

While large organizations are still getting their e-commerce infra (tech, processes, CX, etc) in place, it is the MSMEs i.e. the Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises (MSME’s) who have moved fast and cashed on it already. This is not just helping them survive but is also providing them access to wider markets, overcoming geographic boundaries, and providing a level playing field for competing with larger players.

The pandemic has made it clear that e-commerce is an important tool or solution for consumers. Companies are now aggressively building thier d2c websites/ apps as well are now seriously looking at their presence in marketplaces.

2. Data

Marketers have long recognized the importance of data in understanding and engaging customers as individuals. But as customers’ circumstances and needs evolve rapidly, building a clear understanding of them is nothing short of essential. Data, in and of itself, isn’t useful. Its impact is realized when the insights it holds are unlocked. And those insights are only valuable if the data is accurate, timely, and permissible to use in the desired manner.

Marketers cite data unification and activation among their top challenges. Their discontent may be tied to a fragmented data management technology landscape. Technologies like CDP have suddenly become a top priority investment for marketers. As all this happens, marketers are also now taking serious steps to not just comply with regulations like GDPR, but exceed them.

3. Martech

Now more than ever, marketers have understood the need to have a cohesive understanding of a customer’s full journey.

Today’s marketers are applying their expertise at every stage from branding to acquisition to retention and advocacy. Traditional marketing roles focused on specific stages of the sales funnel, or tactics like email or social media, are falling out of favor. It’s now the exception to the rule for marketers to “own” a given stage of the customer journey. Since the customer experience (CX) landscape is composed of a series of parallel but related technology stacks, the implications for CX are diverse and unpredictable.

Till now buyers of marketing tools had a different agenda for their tech usage than buyers of tools for customer service and support. All this is changing. There is a gradual convergence of these stacks, this economic moment has forced them to rethink about how to prioritize certain projects (e.g., digital transformation or automated self-service), accelerating some and pushing others to the back burner. ROI and ease of use are becoming key decision points in rationalizing the current marketing technology stack.

On the more strategic side of the CX equation, businesses are working harder to find and protect revenue sources. Hence the urgent need to ramp up some key stack products like recommendation engines, personalization tools, and audience targeting.

4. A bird in the hand is worth more in the bush

On average, it costs five times more to acquire a new customer than it does to retain an existing one. I’m observing that the cost of customer acquisition is significantly higher in our COVID-19 era, as caution and uncertainty tighten wallets and nurture indecision.

Every business is now questioning how customers’ loyalty has changed in the months since COVID-19 and looking for ways to stem customer attrition. Organizations are looking at thier CRM & loyalty program data more sharply to measure COVID-19-driven behavior changes within a strong sample and then enhance the program to improve customers’ experience and loyalty.

CMOS are now taking a hard look at what works with thier most engaged customers and continues to make it all about them.CRM systems are being re-looked at depending upon the level of insights the CMO is getting today and the maturity of the AI engines sitting withing the CRM.

We are also recommending organizations to go beyond the “spend-and-get” model, allowing users to, say, save up for a discount on favored programs, or even to get rewards that aren’t conversion-based. For instance, rewarding customers when they share content, refer a friend, leave product feedback, or respond to an email.

5) Everything is being measured.

Given reduced marketing budgets, CMOs are more than vary about spending money on non-measurable media. Customer level profitability is becoming an important measurement and organizations are remodeling thier marketing spends by building strong analytics capabilities and platforms.

With so many forces at play, a holistic econometric model is needed to accurately measure and decompose the impact of COVID-19 and its compounding impact on other business drivers such as media, operations, and direct to consumer marketing. The model lends itself to quantification and decomposition of impacts, reporting of core performance metrics (ROI, cost per acquisition, response/unit of support, etc.) and scenario planning (simulation and optimization).

From a spend perspective, media spends have moved more and more to performance marketing because it is here where every penny is measurable.

6) Influencers as media

With production houses shut, no traditional content is being made; forcing brands to look at alternate ways of promotion.

Since influencers have the ability to convert thier home into workspaces they are spreading awareness in very innovative ways to thier millions of followers.

With people being bound to home, screen times are soaring as people are spending an added number of hours on social media. The natural outcome is that more and more individuals are following influencers and religiously looking forward to the content they create. Brands are now thinking about how they can help thier consumers, using the creativity of these influencers to spread the message and indirectly promote the brand. This is corroborated by research done by CreatorIQ who analyzed posts made by these influencers concerning PSA/ social good campaigns. Overall engagements on PSA/ information-sharing posts by creators have passed 1.5 billion, on 480,000 posts.

7) Content and organic traffic

When it comes to organic traffic, marketers are now starting to realign the benchmarks to match their industry’s new “normal.” Search Engine Journal studied retailers’ traffic from 2019 and across the same weeks in 2020. It found that essential retailers, like grocers, had experienced an increase in organic traffic; “inessential” retailers, like clothing stores, had experienced a drop. Every industry is experiencing traffic changes, whether positive or negative; marketers need to plan accordingly. The easiest and fastest way to boost organic traffic? Provide relevant content! eg Nike is asking consumers to “play inside, play for the world.” The brand backed that messaging up with a campaign that waived fees for premium programming on the Nike Training Club app.

The ongoing coronavirus pandemic is impacting every part of our lives, from the places we can go to the way we spend our time, to the priorities we have, and the way we spend our money.

As the famous Harvard Business School professor Theodore Levitt said the purpose of all business is to “find and keep customers.” The CMO is and was always instrumental in helping businesses achieve this purpose.

Hence marketing is changing too and why not, finally marketers are the core custodians of the customers.

If you are CMO, hope you are listening! Do you resonate with the above? would love to hear more.

The author is CEO — DAN Consult, the consulting arm of Dentsu Aegis Network where he helps companies with their eCommerce, Martech, and Digital-led growth strategies. Lalit has seen the evolution of digital since its early days in the APAC region. He has evolved from a digital marketeer to an internet entrepreneur and now runs a growth and marketing transformation consulting firm.