2021 is an uncertain year, especially from the marketing perspective. While it has presented challenges, it also provides opportunities for brands to capitalize on them.
2021 has not been the year that most CMOs predicted. While its beginning seems promising, it all came crashing down when the world was hit by another COVID wave. Just like 2020, CMOs saw in the first and second quarter of 2021 a reduction in their marketing budget. As per Gartner’s “The State of Marketing Budgets in 2021: Insights from Gartner’s Annual CMO Spend” the organization’s total marketing budget plummeted to 6.4% of the total revenue. However, this time they were better equipped to tackle the challenges with the lessons they learned from the previous year. Additionally, brands also have to shift their marketing efforts towards a data, buyer-driven approach. While the past couple of years have been about reacting to the issues associated with pandemic-related transformation, in 2022, it will be about how organizations can successfully regain their footing to thrive in a customer-centric environment.
Heading in 2022, CMOs will need to remain agile and flexible to handle additional changes. There are several factors that they should proactively consider to be successful even in today’s shifting market.
Also Read: How to Provide Great CX in an Increasingly Digital-First Landscape
Here are the five from 2021 that CMOs can utilize to achieve success in 2022:
-
Embracing change
In 2021, continuous change and uncertainty is the only factor that is constant. With the future increasingly uncertain, today’s brand leaders should take steps to keep their teams engaged, motivated, and able to cope with the change. They should take steps to strike an all-important balance between leading to accomplish a mission while focusing on individuals to foster team growth and development. Additionally, they should guide the initiatives and process from beginning to the end and use change to ignite new ways of working and thinking. Furthermore, they should embrace the change as it will help them to spur innovation.
-
Understand customer needs
To succeed in today’s marketing ecosystem, brands should know the needs and desires of their target customers from inside and out. Throughout the funnel, brands should query themselves about the exact needs while crafting a clear persona that reflects a deeper of these needs. Brands should access additional personalized data points such as geography, career level to customize their messaging.
CMOs should take steps to break down the silos between departments to get a unified view of the customer. This ability will help marketing leaders to understand the behaviors of the customers while being able to deliver a more personal and relevant experience as a result of putting the customer first.
-
Emphasize on personalization
Personalizations have been a defining factor for brands to achieve the success they have hoped for in 2020 and 2021. Heading in 2022, CMOs will keep up with the movement. For the brands that struggle to achieve their personalization goals, they should focus on identifying the biggest moments of receptivity for their story. To successfully achieve this, CMOs should ensure that these “rights” compound to meaningful engagement that matters to the buyer persona they are targeting. While data is a key factor to achieving success, the aspect of establishing authentic connections and unlocking optimal results lie with empathy, personalization and understanding.
For more such updates follow us on Google News TalkCMO News.