I had an interesting task last week where a senior coworker asked me what marketing should look like going into the future. COVID-19 has dramatically changed how we work, leading to a lot of soul-searching and new consumer behaviors. I started a mind map (I use MindMaster) to get some ideas flowing, first thinking of what we’ve often heard so much of to this point. Agile, elastic, cross-functional, t-shaped, data-driven, people-based. There is no shortage of archetypes and adjectives when it comes to marketing. That is our job after all.
Looking to the future, I decided to think more about what things a successful marketer should and shouldn’t do and what traits will help them. Marketers should openly experiment with new mediums and channels (like Voice). Finding the next new thing results in a very useful first mover advantage. They should be aware of and empathize with the consumer. Consumers see through BS and aren’t stupid. Marketers should be dynamic and diversified. Having limited roads with the consumer can not only keep you from maximizing your sales, but could endanger your business like those that lack any EC capabilities during a lockdown. Marketers need to be empowered by their leaders and trusted by their clients. They need to be collaborative. A rising tide helps lift all ships.
We need to be additive.
You already knew that would be the word I settled on from the spoiler title. But now, more than ever, this is obvious. Marketing budgets are on the cutting block and consumer spending is becoming more discriminative. What really matters is in focus and this will continue to play out across the globe. Consumers don’t want to be told things anymore. Honestly, they never did, but that was the only option available for so long. They want brands and products that listen to them. That provide real value and solve real problems. That make the world, particularly their world, a better place.
I wrote in a previous post about how many established brands today got here by saturating advertising channels and monopolizing retail shelves, but that those practices are starting to falter due to the ‘infinite shelf’ of eCommerce and everyone coming online. This behavior is now accelerated with retail locations on lockdown leaving consumers to shop, and do everything else, online. I posited that businesses who win from here are those who best understand the consumer, and that stands. Understanding the consumer, what they desire, need, and are searching for empowers you to give them just that. You’re trying to answer them instead of misappropriating their needs onto your product.
This is one reason why Owned Commerce, influencer marketing, and community-based marketing and commerce will continue to expand. People are already finding value in the communities they’ve joined. They’re there for a reason. They enjoy certain content, certain experiences, and find it adding to their lives. Those things are crafted for them, and products that are made for them will also catch on over something generic.
Microsoft is an interesting example. I’ve been watching how they have pivoted to being far more collaborative in recent years. Whether integrating Cortana with Alexa or scrapping their home-grown browser for one built with the ‘rival’ Google Chromium engine, this is definitely not the Microsoft of old. (Side note, working from home I decided to do a slightly scientific browser comparison between Chrome, Chrome Canary, Brave Browser, Firefox, and Microsoft’s new Edge built in Chromium. I had problems running our Microsoft 360 suite in Firefox so that dropped it from the running. Then I looked at memory/CPU/GPU usage and Edge was the winner by a long shot, so I’m now enjoying using it. /sidenote) The biggest reason for Microsoft’s change is strategy is likely attributable to their CEO, Satya Nadella. This article takes an interesting peak into his more collaborative stance vs peak Bill Gates, who was notorious for buying up the competition and other combative practices. In the article quoted by that article, Satya talks about how businesses need to give back more. They need to look beyond the bottom line and on the impact they have on the world in general. They need to be additive.
No company is perfect, and whether you agree that Microsoft is practicing what it’s preaching or not, the principle is true, and would make the world a much better place if more broadly employed. I’m not saying to give everything away for free to your rivals. Business is still business. Competition is a healthy thing and results in more choices for consumers and better products, in turn becoming an additive practice. But when competition becomes the goal, when it’s all about winning or losing, is when you’re not helping anyone, including your own business.
In commerce, I love using the metric of category share or market share to show that what we’re doing is actually having an impact. You could be growing sales 10%, for example, but if the category is growing 30%, you’re falling behind. I’ve recently adjusted how I look at this metric, and now ask two questions:
1) Are we growing our share?
2) Are we growing the category?
If you’re just stealing competitors share and the category isn’t growing, it’s just a one-way street towards stagnancy. If the category is growing, then someone else getting a sale doesn’t necessarily mean they took it from you, and your sale isn’t necessarily taken from someone else. In fact, those sales that wouldn’t have existed without your brand and your marketing are exactly what you should be aiming for. Those are additive.
I can hear lots of people’s thoughts reading this and I understand that some categories are much more mature than others. But that doesn’t mean you need to be in an all out slugfest with the competition. Instead, look for new value, look for new applications and use cases, look for new angles, look for new categories to create, look for new markets. These are additive.
Times are tough, but even if they weren’t, humanity has done best when we’ve openly worked together toward the greater good. Now, more than ever, our marketing and business practices need to reflect that. The way for us to ‘return to normal’ isn’t retroactive, but through innovating and creating new value. Those individuals and businesses who have lost jobs likely won’t have a place to go back to, but rather need a new place to move on to. While it is tempting to be conservative and self-serving in hard times, we need to look beyond ourselves. So what kind of marketer/businessman/merchant does the world need now?
An additive one.