Five Lessons I learned from Quantum Marketing

Over the past month, I have read Raja Rajamannar’s book Quantum Marketing. For those who don’t know Raja, he is the chief marketing and communication officer at Mastercard, and Quantum Marketing is currently a bestseller. Over the past 10 years, Mastercard has evolved its marketing strategies and vision to meet its customers’ needs. It is a great read for everyone, especially marketers looking for an innovative perspective on the future of marketing. Here are five lessons I learned from the book:

• Marketers must focus on customer privacy in today’s world.

Marketers sometimes lose the customer’s perspective when developing or leveraging new technologies.?With the growth of digital marketing, customers are concerned about their data. Marketers need to maintain and build trust with their customers. On a weekly basis, they hear about how companies are losing their customers’ trust through privacy breaches. A recent survey, which shows that less than 10% of Canadians are willing to share their privacy with companies, supports Raja’s conclusions.

• Marketers must connect the dots between marketing activities and business outcomes.

In the past, marketing was often viewed as separate from business because it was difficult to attribute marketing activities to sales. This differentiation is no longer the case. With the growth of CRM (Customer Relationship Management) and other technologies, marketers have the tools to educate their respective companies on how they impact sales in the short and long term. Our role as marketers is to demonstrate how we impact a business. Otherwise, we will lose the trust of various departments in our companies

• Marketers must be agency realists. Agencies shouldn’t be serving marketing companies. Instead, they should be partners to drive a better customer experience.

Throughout my career, I have worked with or at many great agencies. Companies that truly view agencies as partners have a competitive advantage because they consider agencies as extensions of their teams. Even though the agency model in marketing is changing, agencies are still vital to the success and growth of companies.

Companies that don’t view their agencies as partners will ultimately fall behind.

• Marketing leaders are strong and emphatic, and especially so in the past 18 months.

Over the past five years, I have had the opportunity to learn from great leaders at companies such as Microsoft, ADP, and Bounteous. Marketing Leaders at these companies explain and simplify the big picture while inspiring employees to achieve their best each day. They are also emphatic, showing genuine concern for the health and well-being of their employees. Marketing leaders who have neither been strong leaders nor supportive of employees have begun to experience the impact of the Great Resignation, which is briefly mentioned in the book.?

• Marketing leaders are team builders

As markets are constantly changing, marketer leaders’ roles are empowering their teams to learn and grow so that the teams can grow as well. In today’s ever-changing role, it is impossible to know everything, so if marketing leaders want to achieve company goals, they must build empowered teams.