Marketing's Dirty Little COVID Secret

There's a dirty secret in the marketing world right now. For some people, it's a GREAT time to be a Marketer. Many companies are thriving right now - some are even growing. Thriving is a strong word, and it doesn't describe the majority of the global Marketing professionals I know, but there are marketing departments in the world that are killing it right now. 

Marketers at businesses that were healthy and profitable before COVID have remained so and some of my friends and colleagues have even seen growth in the last few months - with market share, MQLs, and even coveted SQLs on the rise. What I'm seeing is that the strongest-performing market departments see the business landscape right now as full of opportunities and are grabbing those opportunities with both hands. 

In my experience, the first few months of DBC (Doing Business during COVID) were a mad scramble to figure things out. Thinking back I remember that spinning amusement park ride where the floor drops out and it spins faster and faster until you're stuck to the wall. 

Now we've moved into the next phase, the new normal, and Marketing needs to hunker down for a long fight with an as-yet-unmanaged foe and an unforeseeable outcome. It's time for Marketing to get really good at what we do. Back in the day, we called it Guerilla Marketing, whereby Marketing leverages the business constraints creatively and uses "any means necessary" to get the message out to customers and grow the business. 

Whether you are a 1-person Marketing department, the head of the department, or deep inside a well-funded, large Marketing department, now is the perfect time to 

1. Go narrow and deep: I first heard this idea from Seth Godin, now I apply it to virtually EVERYTHING: paid advertising, customer acquisition, content creation, community development, ABM strategy 

2. Pick up market share from failing competitors. It's happening and there are customers out there that need your solution - honorably fighting for customer share and winning is a career highlight.

3. Align/partner/cooperate with friendly and outright competitors to bring original relevant content and offerings to market; partners share the heavy lifting and keep budgets low.

4. Engage employees - invest in employee training and development. Put employees on upskill plans and they will come out of this weird time with stronger specialized skills.

5. Upgrade MarTech. Get the science of marketing right and use technology built for marketing performance; nuf' said.

6. Build 'pay for performance' compensation packages for star employees. No one is giving raises right now, but as we come out of this period and marketing is positioned for growth, you can show employees you care by building a stable career path with growing responsibility and financial compensation.

7. Hire the cream of the crop - SO MANY marketing professionals are looking for jobs right now that building a Marketing dream team is within reach - and less expensive than it was 6 months ago. Trim your bottom-performing 10% and then hire the best performers you can afford.

8. The Marketing Leader, whether she's called CMO, VP, Director, Manager, should actively level up her skills right now - leadership training, strategic thinking, managing teams - most executives have plenty of room for growth.

Marketing is on the front line in good and bad times, responsible for deciphering and sending messages and communicating essential business truths. As a Marketing Leader, first comes the compassion, support, and flexibility that the pandemic requires... and then comes the realization that this economic reality creates infinite new Marketing possibilities. Virtually every aspect of the way we did business is affected by the pandemic. If you want to upgrade the performance, technology, processes, and people in your Marketing department, there's no better time to dig in than right now.