Bend but don’t break: Marketing in uncertain times

Bend don’t break: flexible marketing in uncertain times

By Sam Shennan, Managing Director, Incubeta

There are very few things in this world we can be certain of. In fact, according to Benjamin Franklin there are just two, death and taxes. The rest is unpredictable.

When it comes to the world of marketing, however, it feels like we’ve spent the last couple of years moving away from the unpredictable and have arrived downright chaotic. Global economics are increasingly unstable, supply chains have been brought to their knees by geopolitical unrest, the third-party cookies we’ve spent years building our strategies around are being taken away and we’re getting unnervingly close to creating the marketing equivalent of the Terminator.

For those trying to plan and execute an innovative strategy during these times, while also dealing with budget cuts and increasing consumer demands, it’s easy to feel like control is slipping away.

But let’s face it, we never had control in the first place. Our job as marketers has always been unpredictable. We have to plan for the unplannable, predict the trends of the future and attempt to make educated guesses as to where our customers will be and what they’ll want to hear.

And while things may seem more uncertain now than they have done before, it isn’t something entirely new, nor something that we should let break us. All we need is just a little more flexibility in our planning, to leave ourselves enough room to bend and adapt to any unexpected external factors – and use them to build new opportunities instead of cracking under the pressure.

Prepare to be agile

It (probably) goes without saying, but the future is nigh on impossible to predict. We can take information from the past and the present and use it to make an educated guess about what might be coming our way, but this will inevitably be met with something that none of us could have foreseen. Like the UK voting for Brexit. Or the resurgence of the mullet.

So, as well as trying to predict what the future will bring, we need to be agile enough to dodge the constant curveballs it throws. And, in the same way, athletes stretch before competing – to make sure they don’t snap something – agility in marketing requires preparation.

A good starting point is to improve internal communications and the way in which different teams collaborate. Brands, particularly larger ones, can find themselves slowed down by long-winded decision-making processes, internal silos and bottlenecks. This then affects their ability to respond to external developments, holding them back from quickly adapting to any changes and putting them at risk of losing touch.

By streamlining communications and approval processes, and fostering a more collaborative working environment, we can change direction much faster. Collaboration between teams and a shorter, well-defined pipeline encourages ideas to be shared, allows new trends to be more swiftly identified, and stops any corresponding action from being delayed.

This, in turn, puts us in a better position to pivot our marketing strategies, make quicker data-driven decisions, and help ensure we’re still meeting our consumers with the right message, in the right place, at the right time.

Put yourself in your customer’s shoes

It’s also important to keep in mind that this isn’t just a chaotic time for brands, businesses, and marketers. It is a chaotic time for everyone. And for brands looking to stay relevant and impactful (or, realistically, for any brands wanting to survive) they need to develop a deeper understanding of their customers’ needs and show empathy through their messaging.

This, of course, isn’t a new idea. Studies have shown time and time again the importance of personalization in messaging. Yet a recent study by Salesforce found that, currently, only 34% of companies generally treated their customers as unique individuals, and just 37% of brands generally demonstrated empathy.

In other words, there is room for improvement. And with our world becoming increasingly uncertain, consumer priorities and values will quickly shift, making it more important than ever for brands to maintain an understanding of what their audience is currently going through.

We need to invest more in getting to know our customers and engaging with them directly. Collecting first and zero party data gathered through traditional engagement tools, such as surveys and feedback, and new technologies that encourage interaction, including immersive experiences like augmented reality, can help to expand our customer knowledge. This data can then be analyzed and measured against global, social, economic and cultural trends, to paint a far more detailed picture of our customers and how they are responding to the chaos.

Once we have this deeper understanding of our audience, we can refine our messaging to show the right amount of empathy, deliver on the values that are important to them, and avoid putting our foot in it by hitting them with something they couldn’t care any less about.

Embrace the change

There is a third certainty in life, alongside the death and taxes presented by Benjamin, which is change. It is an inevitability, that we can either choose to run away from or embrace and use to fuel evolution, innovation, and growth.

Spoiler alert, it is better to embrace the change, because it’s happening whether you want it to or not. The world will continue to develop, technology will advance and societal values will shift. And while this may at times feel chaotic, that chaos also brings opportunity, and those that aren’t ready to grab hold of it will quickly find themselves left behind. Just look at what happened with Blockbuster.

To keep ahead of the curve, we need to hold the door open to change and be prepared to experiment with the new ideas, technologies, and strategies it brings. Incorporating new tools, such as artificial intelligence, is already proving successful for the brands experimenting with it. Running campaigns on new platforms, such as TikTok, has allowed brands to get their message in front of an audience that others are missing out on. And with third-party cookies soon to be a thing of the past, our hand is being forced to adapt our strategies accordingly.

Don’t get it wrong, experimentation can be risky. In fact, some experiments may fail spectacularly. But that is all part of the growth journey and, while the risk is still there, experimenting with the new is far less risky than letting yourself become obsolete.

Flexible and future-ready

For us to succeed in an unpredictable world, we need to be prepared for its unpredictability. Regardless of whether we face something positive or negative, the onus is on us to stay agile and prepared to change our strategies accordingly – using data-driven insights to build a deeper understanding of our customers wants, needs and values, and how these change in response to world events.

As technology continues to advance, we also need to remain open to experimenting with the new tools available. Google’s CEO has already suggested that AI will be more profound than electricity and fire, which were fairly profound in their own right, and shutting the door to the possibilities new technology can enable is a step towards obsolescence.

Ultimately, for those that are prepared to be agile, ready to experiment and are taking the time to get to know their consumers, there is opportunity to be found in the uncertainties of life. For those that stay rigid and push back against the tide, there is the danger of falling behind and quickly losing relevancy.

The choice is either to bend, or to break.