A Marketer's Reflection on Certainty in Times of Uncertainty

Uncertainty is still pervasive, and confidence is still deteriorating. Around the world, frustration with two years of the pandemic, inflation, and geopolitical tensions have fueled anger, distrust, and xenophobia. By reflecting upon the past year, I will address the few certainties that help me make consistent decision-making as a marketing professional.

When I sit down to write my review every spring, I reflect on the challenges in the past year, and they often feel like a distant memory.

By nature, I focus on what’s coming in the ever-evolving marketing landscape. But now, I feel uneasy about drawing that distinction between years. Over two years after COVID-19 became a global pandemic, we are still canceling in-person events; over four years after the first Chinese company was added to the Entity List, US-China relations have yet to return to normalcy.

I'm optimistic. To be alive is to be uncertain. But since 2020, we seem to be on a precipice of uncertainties, all of which lead to increasing fear –  fear of change, fear of new players, fear of an unfamiliar world...Especially in times of change, uncertainty can cause people to avoid responsibility because they cannot see the finishing line. In this blog post, I will discuss three marketing trends that remain certain to me in times of uncertainty:

Stick to Core Value

We often make our content stick to the core brand value in marketing. As a litmus test,  I will ask myself these two questions after I write a copy:

Is it memorable as  Coca-Cola's Happiness or Patagonia's sustainability?

Is it consistent with what my company does?

In a recent survey, 77% of consumers buy from brands that share their values. This means you may serve the best milk tea in town, but that alone doesn’t earn your audience’s undying loyalty when new flavors and brands keep emerging. According to the book How Customers Think by Prof. Gerald Zaltman at Harvard University, 95% of purchasing decisions are triggered by the unconscious — which is precisely where our core values operate.

One of the biggest misconceptions in content marketing is that companies create brand value. However, it is the other way around. Value drives people to work together and form a company. As a marketer, you need to discover and describe them in a way that resonates with your target audience.

Whether it is climate change, racial equity, or economic inequality, the events of this past year have brought heightened conversations and, more importantly, further strengthened the public's sense of responsibility. A key factor to consumers' decision-making will be core brand value - what the brand stands for, who it serves, and its impact on the people, the society, and the planet.

Digital Transformation

“Digital transformation” is a constantly heard term in today’s conference rooms and news media. More than any year before, 2021 highlighted the benefits of this shiny buzzword to the marketing industry. In Forrester's US 2021 Customer Experience Index, 21% of brands earned higher scores due to rapid digital transformation.

Despite the rapid progress worldwide, the meaning of “digital transformation” may still be confusing as I observed marketing teams fail severely due to wrong resources, talent, or goals.

Digital transformation means many different things for different parts of the organization. While the marketing teams focus on digital tools to interact and sell to customers, for the IT teams, it is all about upgrading the company's digital infrastructure... A Harvard Business Review article presents a simplified framework of four pillars to enable digital transformation. Typically, IT uplift goes ahead of digital marketing.

So I was genuinely thankful for the strong support for the digital transformation from the top of my company and the IT team's effort to make this multi-faceted journey starts smooth for my team:

• Build strong cases to turn in-person events into virtual while achieving sales effectively;
• Test and evaluate the ROI on new marketing opportunities  like gamification, 360-degree product video, etc.;
• Optimize marketing channels and conversion funnels with a shrinking budget;
• Monitor media and social media to deploy proper crisis communications...

A 2020 McKinsey study shows since COVID-19 became a global pandemic, companies’ adoption of digital technologies has sped up by three to seven years under the fear of being outflanked by competitors.

“When digital transformation is done right, it’s like a caterpillar turning into a butterfly, but when done wrong, all you have is a fast caterpillar.” – George Westerman.

Learning

The elements that propel you into excellence today can become hindrances with introducing new skills tomorrow.

Imagine if a software company ceased to update their product after an initial success - they reached the peak of excellence for the ’90s, and they were satisfied. Those companies would surely be out of business today.

Standard education and degrees are no longer necessary in today's fast-moving, technology-driven society. It is not about majors but lifelong learning that can catch up to the rapid pace of technological development that is necessary. It would be best if you continued to improve your skillset to make yourself "marketable." If you handle projects with ONE successful formula like a machine and stop there, you risk falling behind in an ever-evolving digital world. By staying up to date with the latest trends and daring to dabble in new practices, you’ll keep your brand at the forefront of digital and absorb new knowledge.

As the pandemic took hold, I knew many marketing teams were burnt out. We should always leave time for our development - learning new skills and trying things outside our day-to-day. This helps you develop confidence and skills that come in handy when life veers off course.

With many unprecedented changes and uncertainty in 2021, I learned the importance of agility, grit, and perseverance. Finally, I am genuinely grateful for having my family's support and my team’s trust. As I continue to be guided by my passion for the work, I look forward to the pace of change and the size of opportunities that we see in 2022.