Marketing in Today’s World: It’s All About the Consumer - Jacopo D’Alessandris
“Marketing must be viewed in the context of the full end-to-end journey and, where possible, work to connect the dots.” — HBR
Harvard Business Review published an article on the ‘10 Truths About Marketing After the Pandemic’ that highlighted the way this new digital world has changed marketing and marketing strategies forever. It begins and ends with the consumer: we must make sure our brands have values that are important to the consumer, all facets of the business work together flawlessly with clear objectives, and that our customer experience is better than the best one your customer has ever had.
During the pandemic, marketing has been elevated within the C-suite as a driver of digital transformation, a key leader of the customer journey, and the voice of the consumer — all of which are of paramount importance to other functional leaders.
I summarized four key objectives to incorporate into your organization:
1. Align individual and collective goals across the customer journey so any disconnects between functional silos like marketing, sales, and customer service are invisible to the end consumer.
2. Bring customer relationship management (CRM) team closer than ever to the media teams to see the full continuum more easily.
3. Leave space for both brand and performance marketing given that bottom funnel strategies drive top funnel goals and vice versa. Simply put: They work better together.
4. And quite possibly the most important: lead with values, and make sure that everyone inside and outside the organization, and especially your customers, know what you stand for.
Brand values are critical, as research shows that “while quality, convenience, and price still very much matter to consumer choice, factors like sustainability, trust, ethical sourcing, and social responsibility are increasingly important to how consumers select their products and services.”
Even through the changes of the marketing landscape as a result of the pandemic, “we can find familiarity and confident footing in the simplest and most critical truth of all: We must prioritize the perspective of the customer now, next, and beyond above everything.”
