Did you know that on average, every year 25% of a company’s turnover comes from a product or service they didn’t offer the year before? Taking this into account, it means every four years the entire product range or offered services of a company renew completely. Organizations need to be agile and constantly reinvent themselves to keep up with their competitors, the fast-changing market, and new technologies. We live in volatile times. And the more volatile the world, the faster things evolve. No wonder we feel like change keeps coming at the speed of light.
The future is uncertain and it comes with a lot of big challenges. Let’s have a quick look at the past 2 years: Covid-19 crisis, Russian-Ukrainian war, extreme inflation, environmental issues… And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Luckily every downside has its upside. We’ve learned to really cope with crises and even grew stronger while fighting them.
But, the world is also a complex place. We have to find a balance between opposites to find peace of mind. The balance between ratio and emo. Between creativity and technology. Productivity and connection… At Dropsolid we’ve introduced collaborations with multidisciplinary teams with different kinds of experts and mixed skills to find balance throughout our company.
Lastly, the present is ambiguous. There’s rarely one possible and right answer. Context is extremely important. As a business, decisions are almost impossible to make while using a decision tree, as they did in the past. Luckily nothing is just black and white. We need to learn to dance between the rules and think in gray. Or even better, in color.
Our world is volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous. Knowing this, we have to start working in a different way. Get a hold of the changes, create order out of chaos and make the complex as simple as possible. For a business, this means not sticking to a fixed plan, but working within a thoughtful framework. Have a clear vision in mind, but remain flexible in how you want to achieve it. Don’t wait to start working on your framework for 2023. The time is now.
Challenges for marketers in 2023
2. Aim for the best customer experience
Your customers expect a frictionless journey. Their demands are as high as ever before and they want fast, high-quality products and services.
5. Fight for the bigger cause
We all strive for something more, the bigger picture or a higher goal. Look for the why behind your brand, product, or service. Think about diversity, equity, and inclusion. Is this done right? Can you improve? What do you want to change?
Recommendations for marketers in 2023
1. Anticipate
Always be ahead of the game. Dive into the forces driving the change in your industry and try to anticipate. Invest in trend-watching and take a step back to have a clear overview of the bigger picture and what’s to come. Consider the idea of having a board of advice with external experts.
2. Strive for frictionless journeys
The lifetime of a customer is a perfect KPI to measure how loved your brand is and how loyal your ambassadors are. These three steps will help you increase the customer lifetime, give their engagement a boost, and make them love your brand even more: Know them - Reach them - Spoil them
Reach them
Always aim for an integrated omnichannel journey. Seamless touchpoints for all customers as they move down the funnel is nothing new. But don’t lose consistency across those journeys.
Making this a reality is not the same linear process for any organization. To know what you need to invest in as an organization and why, you need a well-thought-out digital strategy, a roadmap, and a deep understanding of how your clients relate to your brand.
A customer’s journey consists of at least seven touch points, across multiple channels. Do you know all seven of yours?
An open digital experience platform can - in most cases - provide you with the perfect tooling to do all of the above.
3. Keep your costs in check
Communicate authentically, also about price increases.
The most effective messaging comes from brands that take the time to communicate openly. Also about price-increases. They don’t just communicate the extra cost and supply challenges, but they also explain and identify the business reason behind it. Take the opportunity to highlight the innovations you’re undertaking that resonate with your brand’s strengths. Many customers will appreciate the transparency and it underlines the authenticity of your company.
Fast and cheap VS scalable and future-proof
Make a conscious choice between a cheaper and quick solution like for example Wix, or a well-thought-out and scalable MVP (Minimum Viable Product) and Product Backlog to foresee what the future could look like. Through a Product Backlog, your ideal solution is already beginning to take shape nicely, but with your newly-captured data, you'll quickly gain fresh insights that you can use to make better choices. Ideally start with a small MVP, which can also be fast and cheap. Start from this to scale and systematically expand, instead of hitting your limits with a quick and inflexible solution.
When going through a digital transformation, find your focus and take the time to reinvent your company and make deliberate changes. Choose your tactics based on usefulness and set up performance-based agreements. For example how performant are my marketing tactics like video, voice, AI... in attracting leads or improving CLV (Customer Lifetime Value)? Don’t forget to evaluate your distribution channels' effectiveness and consolidate to make your network even stronger.
Avoid any kind of lock-in
Don’t pay a big price for a system that doesn’t allow you to be flexible and scalable. Choose an open system that gives you the freedom to expand on your own terms. Without lock-in.
Test, learn, build, …
Don’t start without a plan. Test your idea with a small audience, learn from their input and only build when it’s validated.
At Dropsolid we use the principles of ‘Discover - Build - Grow’ when working with clients. First, we look for their pain points, goals, and needs. It all starts with a solid strategy. Next, we build a strong, scalable, and user-friendly platform. Their digital dream is our challenge. Later, we set up a plan to expand their business and to grow their digital success permanently.
4. Incorporate social responsibility linked to your industry
It’s always good to have purpose-driven marketing and a clear ‘why’ of your business. But don’t forget the basics for your employees, your customers, and the world. They are the heart of your company.
Your customers
Make sure your customers trust you with their private information. Don’t abuse their data and go for a solid and transparent GDPR policy.
Always start with your customer in mind and build your products and services for them.
Consider moving to a hybrid cloud system. Not sure yet? Feel free to give us a call and learn more about this.
5. Invest in lifelong learning
Technology will keep on changing the way we do marketing. Marketers' success will depend partly on how good they are in figuring out how IT can help them. Bring your departments closer together. Even better, define an organizational structure that breaks all silos. Give reverse coaching and mentoring a try, it might give you some interesting points of view. For example, consider your management team being coached by cyber-savvy people under the age of 30 to have some eye-opening insight.
Don’t be afraid to teach your partners how to independently use your tools. At Dropsolid we share our knowledge, our code, and our talent with our clients. They have full control over all their assets.
Struggling with other challenges and need some advice?
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Anneleen Demasure was chosen as Inspiring IT woman in Belgium. In a predominantly male IT world, she strives for a better balance of energies.