The word I’ve heard a lot when talking to B2B marketers lately is growth. Under certain conditions, the best marketers can find ways to persevere and even grow. If not in terms of sales, then in terms of aspects of their long-term digital transformation strategy, in terms of their flexibility and agility, and in terms of their ability to connect with customers more effectively.
Many marketers feel like they are entering the new year with a new perspective, new skills, and a stronger team. At the same time, we are all a bit overworked and suffer from more than a small tunnel vision, as we all had to concentrate on keeping everything running for a short time. After a long, hard time leading up to 2020, it is important to take a deep breath and look ahead. It is time to assess which findings can be applied to the “next normal” in 2021 and how.
1. Keep it Team Agility Going
In 2020, many B2B marketing teams had no choice but to be agile. This often meant they worked longer hours to do extra work as customers changed their behavior, canceled events, and went online. At the same time, teammates may have been laid off while new communications and processes had to be created for COVID-19. This kind of quick work while taking changes into account created a new type of muscle memory that, if used well, can become a great asset in 2021.
McKinsey questioned 25 companies rated the value of agile teams through the pandemic, finding they were significantly more likely to perform better on key factors such as customer satisfaction and operational performance. These teams have built-in agility. Unlike other companies who believe they can go back to normal in 2021, agile companies keep their flexibility and just stick with it.
B2B marketers can also hold onto their newfound flexibility by applying some best practices:
- Plan near and far, rely less on the middle distance. With so many changes, it doesn’t make sense to simply create normal quarterly or annual plans based on previous years. Now is the time to take advantage of short-term insights and act more like an engineering team with short sprints. For example, if customers are responding very well to email right now, lean on email for a month and re-rate them. If you’re interested in more research than normal, plan to do more research quickly. At the same time, check these short-term measures with long-term goals so as not to go too far off course.
- Create bite-sized projects and check in frequently. Creating a new website or planning an event can take months, but each project should be broken down so staff can turn if something changes. For example, segment the website into modules and tackle them one by one. Make sure teams communicate with each other frequently, share insights, and are not afraid of failure. When each piece is smaller, mistakes won’t hurt so much and people can learn faster.
- Give people cross-functional responsibility. This could have happened by itself in 2020 as resources were strained and plans changed. Now is the time to make these informal elements more official. Perhaps people can get together on topics like a big spring product announcement rather than sticking to one track like “email” and “social media”. This encourages cross-fertilization of ideas and ensures that employees are more familiar with other elements of the marketing team.
- Focus on knowing the customer. According to DeloitteA common view of the customer is crucial in order to act quickly and safely. However, it can be difficult to aggregate that much data. Use technology that can help. For example, Deloitte recommends using social CRM tools and rapid prototyping so that you can learn from customers faster and offer more relevant experiences and products.
2. Simplify the technology configurations
In lean times, fewer resources can be freed up for technology. gardener predicts that 60 percent of marketing directors will cut tech budgets in 2021. Of course, some of that is due to lower than expected earnings in 2020 and projected leaner times in the near future. However, there is great value in streamlining your martech stack – it is much easier to use. Often times, many features and functionality in a tech stack are either not used or there is large overlap, creating workflow issues, slowing down data, and creating silos across channels.
Before cutting, think about your desired skills and check out your current supplier partners. Look for technologies that offer richer features that allow you to reduce point solutions, but also prefer those partners that offer flexibility, additional customization options, and open modern designs that offer expandability. You want to find out which partners can best integrate, share workflows, and create combined customer insights and compatible reports.
3. Reinforce the human touch with your customer
KPMG recommends focusing on delivering your values so that your customers can keep their trust in your company even as things continue to change. To do this well online, it’s important to create a consistent experience across all channels and use technology to amplify what you miss without interacting in person. For example, if customer service is most important to your business, add elements like automated chat to your websites. Use AI capabilities to bring up a chat box or call center number for people who seem lost or confused while browsing.
Or if your business is about giving back, build that into your online experience. Keep blog posts updated on running programs and send emails reminding customers of the good you are doing and how your business is contributing to it.
Your customers will remember you were there for them and they will keep the partners close by who have been the most responsive and trustworthy. The benefit of 2020 is that many marketers will be better able to provide improved service and communication through digital channels like telemedicine calls and virtual shopping assistants. Instead of working digitally to focus on personal marketing in due course, keeping that human touch will also get the best result online in 2021 and beyond.