Sales and Marketing Strategy May Have Changed Forever After COVID-19

We’re currently living through the largest social disruption anyone has seen in our lifetime.

Pivoting and adjusting to this new normal hasn’t been easy. Staff have been furloughed, parents have had to balance family with work commitments, while isolation has become a physical and mental challenge.

But in the face of such adversity, it’s abundantly clear that humanity has stepped up to the plate.

All over, we hear great stories of employees rising to the occasion. Stories of overcoming adversity, of putting others first or embracing the harsh realities to succeed – in spite of the circumstances. These are human qualities at their finest, and it’s what makes employer branding such a powerful and impactful strategy.

At Ph.Creative, we believe adversity is the most tangible link between who we are and why anything has meaning to us. It’s through life’s struggles that we test ourselves, prove we are capable of great things and carry these lessons forward into everything we do.

The COVID-19 crisis has revealed a number of fundamental truths, one of which being the importance of authenticity. To succeed in 2020 and beyond, organizations must look beyond a purely consumer-led marketing approach to embrace the best aspects of the employer brand.

In doing so, companies can act smarter with their marketing dollars, invest in their employer brand and tell human stories that resonate with people on a much more intimate and personal level.

Forget employer brand and consumer brand – it’s now just one brand

For the past decade, employer brand has risen through the ranks of the corporate agenda. And for good reason, too.

Thanks to the rise of social media and the emergence of online review platforms like Glassdoor, power has shifted from employer to employee. In fact, the average employee now spends 6 hours researching a company before deciding whether or not to apply.

This same mindset applies in the consumer world, too. Today, consumers are more curious and sceptical than ever before. In our age of instant information, consumers can quickly and readily form opinions about your company before you even have a chance to react.

Increasingly, we’re seeing this transparency influence the line between employer brand and consumer brand. In fact, in the eyes of consumers, there’s now very little distinction between the two at all.

Consider this: 86% of consumers say authenticity is important to them when deciding which brands they like and support.

Now think about the most real, down-to-earth and authentic form of marketing out there. Is slick sales content that highlights the benefits of your products or services the most authentic? Sure, that can serve a purpose in your wider marketing mix, but it’s not always the most genuine or trustworthy.

But at the end of the day, the most authentic and powerful stories you can tell are the ones that matter most: the stories of your people, living your brand, day in and day out.

Smart marketing money will pivot towards authentic, employee-led content

With the effectiveness of employer brand and the skepticism of consumers, who now make deliberate purchasing decisions based on the reputation of organizations as employers, smart marketing dollars are going to be spent telling stories about the people behind the brand.

This form of content marketing is eternally relevant, because it tells stories of overcoming adversity and achieving fulfilment that each and every one of us can intrinsically relate to.

When marketers use employee-led content rather than product-led content, this shifts the focus from an external thing to an internal identity. These stories will help consumers build authenticity, realism and affinity with your brand in a way that is markedly different to the traditional consumer-led approach.

In this sense, employer brand is only going to move higher up the food chain – not just to protect employees, but to protect the company’s wider reputation and increase the sentiment of its consumer brand.

Learn from COVID-19 and make the most worthwhile investment ever

COVID-19 has laid bare the truth of what really matters most: people.

As we slowly work out a collective plan to bring life back to normal, the most successful companies will be those that look objectively at the situation, assess their learnings and apply these insights to future marketing and sales strategy.

Remember that employees and candidates are consumers (and vice versa). We need to stop treating employer brand and consumer brand in isolation and instead view sales and marketing through a distinctly human lens.

This will ensure we shift the focus to address the derivative of what everyone (employees and consumers alike) ultimately cares about: impact, purpose and belonging.

To find out more about how to tell authentic, employee-led stories, my new book, ‘Give & Get Employer Branding’, is available now on Amazon and at all major book retailers.