Adaptability: The Secret Weapon in Every Marketer’s Toolbox

Adapt­abil­i­ty is one of the top skills a mar­keter can have in today’s ever-chang­ing world. With new inno­va­tions con­stant­ly being revealed and rapid­ly evolv­ing cus­tomer expec­ta­tions, the need to quick­ly eval­u­ate your mar­ket­ing strategy’s effec­tive­ness and be able to make changes on the fly is the dif­fer­ence between a good com­pa­ny and a com­pa­ny that main­tains a com­pet­i­tive edge. Our exclu­sive con­tent on CMO.com touched on some of the areas where adapt­abil­i­ty is most impor­tant for a marketer.

Brendán Mur­phy and Emma DeFe­lice, senior part­ner and part­ner at Lip­pin­cott, shared some of the ways brands are learn­ing to adapt to the con­ver­sa­tions they’re hav­ing with their cus­tomers. Acknowl­edg­ing that we live in an on-demand era, Mur­phy and DeFe­lice chal­lenge brands to think out­side them­selves and learn to con­nect with cus­tomers in an authen­tic way. This gives cus­tomers a sense of being under­stood that will go a long way toward build­ing cus­tomer loyalty.

Jack Smith, group dig­i­tal direc­tor at New Look, chal­lenged brands to devel­op a defined mobile strat­e­gy. Mobile is now cen­tral to every­day life, so it’s impor­tant for brands to adapt and make an inten­tion­al effort to reach cus­tomers through mobile chan­nels. Smith fur­ther point­ed out that human beings are being empow­ered by the machines they use, with mobile being the top enabler. Smith revealed that com­pa­nies with a clear mobile strat­e­gy enjoy high­er traf­fic volumes.

Some­times adap­ta­tion can work against a brand. That was the point brand con­sul­tant Sandeep Das made in dis­cussing a brand’s pur­suit of cul­tur­al rel­e­vance. Accord­ing to Das, brands often make a mis­take in try­ing to adapt to a local cul­ture. Instead, brands should be focused on allow­ing the cul­ture to “infuse” into the brand’s mar­ket­ing efforts. This infu­sion requires a brand to gain a deep­er under­stand­ing of a cul­ture and its tra­di­tions and how those shape a brand.

In an exclu­sive inter­view with CMO.com, Stan­dard Life’s head of cus­tomer and dig­i­tal mar­ket­ing, Mary Harp­er, shared how her com­pa­ny is adapt­ing to the increase in dig­i­tal chan­nels and cus­tomer expec­ta­tions. Its strat­e­gy focus­es on engag­ing cus­tomers through dig­i­tal chan­nels putting a high pre­mi­um on devel­op­ing per­son­al rela­tion­ships with customers.

Anoth­er area of adap­ta­tion for many com­pa­nies is blog­ging. Blogs are now a legit­i­mate source of engag­ing and cred­i­ble con­tent, and brands are tak­ing advan­tage of the oppor­tu­ni­ties this pro­vides to reach cus­tomers. Katy How­ell, CEO of Imme­di­ate Future, shared the sen­ti­ment that blogs have moved to a more sophis­ti­cat­ed “pub­lish­er-style” approach and point­ed out the ways blogs have become more sleek and professional-looking.

We hope you’ll spend some time this week engag­ing with our exclu­sive con­tent on CMO.com, and please let us know what you think.