Riding The Waves Of Change.... What Marketers Need To Know In 2020...

My career has come one full circle recently.

Some 20 years ago, I joined a telco start-up (Tech Industry), spent 10 years there before I moved to the financial services industry. So it may sound like a natural progression for me to join a Fintech. But it’s been a whole new world for me.

I have built a career portfolio as I progress in my career – from brand building, customer experience, customer value proposition to digital marketing etc. Each role comes with a bigger responsibility and new learning. But the role of a marketer keeps evolving and I find myself constantly on a new growth path – to unlearn and relearn.

The business landscape is getting more competitive, profit margins are squeezed and consumers are expecting more. The last best customer experience that anyone has, now becomes the expectation for the experience they want everywhere. 

So what do marketers need to know in Industrial 4.0 to ride the waves of change? 

Here’s 3 key takeaways – (1) Be Customer Centric (2) Be Growth Focused (3) Be In Tune with Martech 

(1) Be Customer Centric

 A good marketing strategy always starts with the customers.

 To achieve brand success in an increasingly digital world, marketers need good customer insights to personalize experience and solutions that meet customers’ needs. Human empathy; putting yourself in customers’ shoes (or through Human Centred Design Thinking workshops) helps draw insights and understand the “Job to be Done”. Other tools like customer journey maps has become valuable for marketers seeking to understand how they can bring value to customers.

According to an Accenture Interactive Global survey done in 2019, 73% of consumers are willing to share more (data) with brands who are transparent (authentic) and understand them intimately. https://accntu.re/35dCKFf. With customer data, brands can tailor services and communications to change customer behaviour at the right time, right channel, to grow customer loyalty.

Today, consumers are exposed to at least 5,000 ads/brand messages each day, from the mobile screen, outdoor advertising to word of mouth. Their minds are now conditioned to see what they want to see, but it’s what resonates with them that will get their attention and they will choose brands they trust.

On the same note, customers have the power to destroy the brand in the digital world, if brands are not listening and are delivering a negative customer experience. 

(2) Be Growth Focused

 A good marketer needs to focus on growth, to be taken seriously in the boardroom.

Growth hacking is a relatively new field in marketing focused on growth. It first started in early-stage startups who need massive growth in a short time on small budgets, but has since then reached bigger organisations. The goal of growth hacking strategies is generally to acquire as many users or customers as possible while spending as little as possible. This requires running a series of experiments and AB testing. But more than that, to drive breakout growth success, you will need the following skills and domain knowledge.

(A) Digital Advertising, social media marketing, content marketing & Organic searches (SEO) are just one aspect of growth hacking. It creates awareness and drive acquisition. However SEO is increasingly difficult and pay-per-click costs increasingly more expensive (Adwords, Facebook, you name it).

Marketers will need to find ways to target the right users (based on personas for the product) to optimize conversions and reduce the customer acquisition cost (CAC) which is a key metric for growth hacking. Understand the customer purchase path (micro-moments) before you develop a broad digital advertising strategy.

(B) Data analytics is equally important. Companies that have successfully "growth hacked" usually have a viral loop naturally built into their onboarding process. New customers typically hear about the product or service through their network and by using the product or service, share it with their connections in turn. This loop of awareness, use, and sharing can result in exponential growth for the company.  

Build in metrics into the whole onboarding process. Anything that needs to be tested has to be tracked so that marketers can keep improving. Data is only useful if it can lead to insights. Insight is something we can turn into a test hypothesis. Marketers will also need to take a data-informed approach in marketing to drive growth.

 (C) Behaviorial science is the understanding of consumer psychology and nudges that help us design the campaigns, build the right media strategy and communication channel to drive growth. Being a data driven marketer is just not enough in this new age. Customers don't make decisions based on cognitive reasoning but decisions are made more emotionally.

(D) Customer experience – the activation, retention & referral success is strongly dependent on customer's (seamless) experience at every stage of the user journey. The customer’s experience especially in an omni channel context is important to ensure customers don’t drop off on any part of the entire customer journey.

In growth hacking, we need to look at the entire funnel (1) Acquisition (2) Activation (3) Retention (4) Referrals. A good customer engagement strategy is important to ensure conversion rate optimization (CRO) at every stage. Understanding human psychology - the motivations and drivers for usage will help develop the right content to engage customers.

 (3)   Be In tune with Martech

With more than 5,000 Martech tools, and growing each day, finding the right Martech tool can be daunting.

Marketers are the glue holding the Martech stack together. How do you choose which Martech tools? 

Three key questions marketers will need to ask (1) What are my immediate goals? (2) Where am I going to achieve the greatest ROI? (3) What is the budget for Martech solutions?

 One of the most powerful martech tool to have is Google Suites 360 to track Google Adword, do re-targetting and more. To automate and manage the whole marketing and sales funnel (that allows you to nature leads and increase sales ready leads), there are common Martech tools from HubSpot, MS365 Dynamics to Sales Force automation. I have evaluated all 3 and your answers to the three questions will help you decide what is best for you.

Check out this site for more tools. https://neilpatel.com/blog/martech-tool-stack/

My final advise to marketers - stay curious and seek growth. Keep challenging yourself and be a self starter.

About the Author

Adeline is an Insights Driven Marketer with experience across telco and top financial institutions. Currently she is with SC Ventures and leads the marketing efforts for the Fintech in brand building, product marketing, partnership development and growth hacking to grow the brand and scale the business.