Adapting to the COVID Disruption: Let Your Marketing Lead

Change is constant. Change is difficult. And typically, the better and faster our response to it, the more successful we are. Nowhere is this more true than within the business world, where there are countless examples of the disruptors and the disrupted.

Disruptors anticipate an industry change and respond with an innovative product, service or message. Think Amazon, Uber and Netflix. On the other hand, you have the disrupted: organizations paralyzed by change, those that fail to adapt, often leading to their decline or demise.

Therefore, we can surmise that the key to longevity in business is a proactive and efficient response to change. Easy to say. Certainly, more difficult to do.

The above excerpt is from an article I wrote a little more than a year ago called, “Use Marketing to Adapt and Respond to Change.” Who could have anticipated the state of change and disruption in which we now find ourselves within? Like everyone else in business, I’ve given “disruption” a lot more thought over these past few months, and I’m proud to find my advice and suggestions within my original that article still holds true: Let your marketing lead.

During a disruption, you need to move on multiple fronts in parallel instead of moving sequentially. This is really important when you are under siege, as we are now — everything is turned upside down, both professionally and personally. We need to encourage our teams to be thinking on multiple fronts at the same time. We have to move with speed, and we have to talk to our customers to understand what they need and how we can help them.

We must do this while thinking about how we cut costs, how we shore up revenue, how we reassure our board and colleagues, how we work remotely — everything, all at once. We need to respond, and do it with an intentional and informed way. When people are being disrupted, it can lead to a lot of running around without a lot of results. Now is the time for leadership to focus and aim.

Where marketing can lead is in encouraging people in this ocean of chaos, in continuing to bring a steady hand and a keen eye on putting customers first, in finding out from current and prospective customers what they really need right now. There are things you can do to bring a level of support that will burnish your brand and renew trust. Strengthen your bonds with your customers. Find ways to stay engaged with them. Customers are still going to need things. They may need different things, or they may need what you’ve always delivered, just delivered in different ways.

Marketing also can help shape the various initiatives across the business with an eye toward expanding customer experience. If you have a customer-centric ethos in your company, all your divisions — HR, legal, risk, compliance, etc. — will want to help your customers. If they proceed in a parallel, but not synchronized or coordinated, way to help customers, all the best efforts will result in a fragmented and helter-skelter customer experience.

To use a war analogy, there are lots of battalions under different commanders. How do you coordinate that? Marketing is not the supreme commander, but it should be the supreme coordinator, repeatedly bringing in the customer-centric sensitivity. Harness all the power of every person in your organization looking toward the customer and the market to help in a time of crisis — but do it in synergy. The CEO is the commander, but as the group that brings the customer to the table, marketing can serve as the facilitating function.

That’s marketing’s forté: looking at what customers want and expect. Ask them how they are going to buy. Will they buy in a time of crisis? Where will they buy? How will they engage with you? Even if the transaction isn’t happening right now, you need to keep the relationship fresh, and keep providing value. Marketing has its ear to the ground around the current sentiment of the customer base.

Customer care at CFA Institute is part of the marketing and communications team. It’s part of our closed-loop feedback system. Our customer-care people are the ones who are talking directly to customers via calls, chats, social channels. They can provide real-time insights into customer sentiment and how customers are feeling.

Marketing is well-armed to provide a point of view for the leadership team and line-of-business leaders on how to craft and manage a response. The marketing department is more than executional elements downstream; it is a key leader and partner with the business units, informing on the customer voice and what is happening in the market.

COVID has put all of us under pressure like we’ve never experienced before and caused disruption to our personal and professional lives With a customer first mentality and focus on the right skills and support from leadership and peers, there’s no reason that organizations can’t successfully navigate and even flourish during these trying times.

That’s not to say marketing is the only group that’s customer-centric or that can bring a customer focus to bear. But during a disruption, everyone needs to play a role, and the role for marketing to play is to lead by bringing in the customer view, so everyone in the company can tap into that insight and determine how to survive the disruption — and thrive.