It is time for you to move out of maintenance mode. For many people, 2020 was the year of the void—the year where if you were just lucky enough to keep your job, you simply put everything in maintenance mode, kept your head down, and then (strategically) hoped for the best. Sure, there were some outliers and, yes, some companies also expanded their marketing spend. No matter the situation, no matter what, every company had to deal with adversity, with reduced budgets and also staff, the remote work, the new systems to manage collaborations differently, the uncertainty, and much more.
Fortunately, all of that has brought us also new opportunities in some ways we never thought was possible. Fewer resources that was spent on sponsoring and on attending events, yet there is still more opportunities to speak; new channels and new opportunities on which to really listen to your customers; also more user-generated content; and a bit more empathy that is all around from everyone. And even though the year 2021 is already half over (where does the time go?), there are still some few things that you can do to up-level your marketing strategy for the remainder of this year.
Go Back to Basics
Let us take it back to why we are doing what we do—solving problems for customers, or the potential customers, in everything we do. I repeat again: Everything you are doing should help them in a meaningful, and in a beneficial way. Take your time to revisit the basics of your target audience and the pain that your product is solving.
Does your strategy need any adjusting at all? Have you even be able to identify that pain? Has their pain or the rules of the marketplace changed over the past year? How are you trying in your own way to resolve this for them? Adjust as necessary.
And it is worth reminding your team that the today’s customers and prospects want to have a conversation. They are simply looking to build relationships and a long-term partnerships with you; they no longer want to be pitched to, they don’t have that time any longer. Who does? Make sure that the relationships you are building are very authentic.
Get in Alignment
Align your corporate goals and then “go to the market strategy” to the customer journey. What are they in search for? You need to be laser focused and you need to do everything with intent—yes, everything! If you can, say “no” to those things that do no’t drive you or the company to reach your required goals. Learning to say no is challenging for so many of us, but you will see faster results when you have aligned your corporate goals to the customer journey and you have cut out the noise. Remember it is just about them, and not about you.