Insights
Modern Marketing Is Changing Faster Than Most Strategic Plans
Marketing has always evolved with technology, media and consumer behavior, but the pace of change over the past several years has created a more fundamental challenge for organizations. Many marketing plans are still built around assumptions that were reasonable not long ago. Customers moved through relatively predictable channels, websites served as the center of the brand experience, search engines were the primary source of discovery, and marketing teams could influence the customer journey through a defined mix of paid, owned, earned and social media. Those assumptions are becoming less reliable.
Customers now encounter brands across a much wider and less predictable ecosystem. They may discover a company through a social platform, research it using artificial intelligence, validate it through an online community, encounter commentary from customers or creators, and form a meaningful impression of the brand before ever visiting its website. Much of the customer journey now takes place beyond the places marketers directly control, which has significant implications for visibility, reputation, content and strategy.
Marketers have access to enormous amounts of behavioral data, but data does not always explain motivation. Knowing that a customer clicked on an advertisement is useful. Understanding why that customer ultimately chose one organization over another is considerably more valuable.
Artificial intelligence or AI, is the most obvious example of how quickly the environment is changing. Much of the early attention has focused on content production. AI can write, edit, summarize, and dramatically reduce the time required to produce routine marketing materials. Those capabilities are useful, but they are unlikely to provide a lasting competitive advantage. As similar tools become available to everyone, faster production becomes an operating expectation rather than a differentiator. That changes the role of a company's own digital properties. A strong website still matters, but it can no longer carry the full burden of establishing credibility or communicating a brand's value. Organizations need a consistent presence and useful, authoritative content that reinforces what the brand stands for wherever customers encounter it.
The growing volume of easily produced content makes distinctive brands more valuable. Brand voice, positioning, visual identity and a clear point of view become more important. For strategic planning purposes, that puts renewed emphasis on the fundamentals of brand development. Brand establishes the position an organization intends to occupy in the minds of its customers and provides a reason to choose it among credible alternatives. Companies that have not done that foundational work may find themselves communicating more frequently without becoming more recognizable or more relevant.
More control has shifted to the market, customers have more ways to compare what a company says about itself with what others say about it and what they actually experience. Reviews, online discussions, employee commentary, media coverage, creator content and customer experiences all exist alongside formal marketing communications. That places greater pressure on marketing, communications, customer experience and operations to work together. The customer experience has to match the brand promise.
Marketers have access to enormous amounts of behavioral data, but data does not always explain motivation. Knowing that a customer clicked on an advertisement is useful. Understanding why that customer ultimately chose one organization over another is considerably more valuable. Traditional forms of customer research can help close that gap. Interviews, surveys, sales conversations, customer service interactions and feedback from frontline employees often reveal things dashboards cannot. Technology can make that information easier to process and help identify patterns, but useful insight still begins with useful information. Organizations that understand the language their customers use, the problems they are trying to solve and the factors influencing their decisions are better equipped to make sound marketing choices.
The proliferation of platforms has made it easy for marketing planning to become a discussion about channels. Social media, paid search, video, podcasts, influencers and emerging platforms naturally attract attention because they are visible and immediate. But deciding where to appear is only one part of a marketing strategy. A strong plan starts with the market, the audiences that matter most, the behavior the organization wants to influence, the position it intends to occupy and the business outcome marketing is expected to support. Channel decisions should flow from those choices.
Disciplined decision making is particularly important for emerging brands and organizations without an established marketing department. In those environments, activity can easily get ahead of strategy. A website gets redesigned, social channels are launched, advertising begins and content is produced before positioning, audience priorities or measures of success have been fully established. An experienced strategic partner can be valuable at that stage. Good outside counsel brings perspective from other organizations and industries, provides objectivity that can be difficult to achieve internally, and helps leadership establish the foundation before significant resources are committed to execution. For organizations that do not yet need a full internal marketing function, the right partner can also provide senior-level thinking and specialized expertise without the infrastructure of a larger department.
Marketers in organizations of all sizes will continue to be offered more tools, more platforms and more ways to reach an audience. Technology is already making execution faster and more sophisticated. The greater challenge is deciding where to focus those capabilities and which opportunities deserve investment.
Modern marketing may be changing quickly, but the fundamentals remain remarkably effective. Organizations still need to know who they are, understand the people they serve, establish a meaningful position in the market and make disciplined choices about where to invest. What has changed is the environment in which those decisions are being made. A winning strategic marketing plan recognizes the current environment and adjusts to meet it.