Market Snapshot – April 2022

  • Posted: 14th April 2022
  • Written by:

    Sean Burrell, SVP of Business Development & Global Alliances

Introduction

As we look at the past 3 months of 2022, there are a few things that pop to the surface for Marketing Executives to take stock in. Of key interest is how marketing management is having to re-think retention of staff and the degree of flexibility that needs to be offered to reduce disruptions in business operations. The labor market is very hot, employees are shuffling jobs and the labor shortage is still very much a problem. The act of managing people is now more complicated than ever as many of us aren’t physically seeing each other in person anymore. Couple this with the still changing desires and needs of our customers, and it requires Marketers to keep refining cross-channel communications and to get access to all the data they can get their hands on. This document explores five challenges involving people and technology that 2022 has brought us and how we just might be able to turn them into organizational benefits.

1. The Side Gig

A recent study by MassMutual showed that 56% of millennials surveyed have a side-hustle they are working on. Surprisingly, for more than 1/3 of those surveyed, it’s not about the extra money; it’s about the chance to do something they are passionate about. Many embraced the extra time they discovered was available as a result of not commuting into offices from developing side gigs to re-training and learning new skills instead.

How could we use this as an advantage?

The question we need to be asking ourselves is “What could we as managers do to make the side gig beneficial for our company’s marketing efforts and/or to retain key members of our staff?” If the side gigs are things that the employee feel energized by, how can we tap into that or encourage that further? This could include recognizing and incentivizing members of the team to obtain new accreditations or skills to support the business or encouraging those folks to share their interests/skills with other staff members to identify a list of strategic initiatives that could be worked on as side-projects.

2. “Remote-r” Working

If your organization still has an in-office requirement, this could lead to unwanted attrition of your own staff moving to companies which offer more flexible working arrangements. Even the hybrid model (a portion of the week working at home and a portion of the week working in-office) is causing employees to leave jobs for fully remote opportunities. The companies which are winning at keeping their staff have quickly changed their processes and – to an extent their overall “culture” – so that they can offer the best options for their workers. Recognizing that some employees have no desire to come into the office while others enjoy or need to come into an office, along with those that want a little of both, is now one of the highest priority items for HR and Executive Boards.

How could we use this as an advantage?

In many ways, the talent pool during the pandemic has got considerably larger. As we struggle to source the right candidates for our talent requirements, it’s now easier to not only source the whole of America but also access significant and willing resources in outsourced destinations such as India, Poland, the Philippines and Brazil. Outsourcing talent has been a great option for 20+ years already – particularly for IT work – but the pandemic showed us that other types of work can also now be easily done remotely with some basic tech tools like Zoom & MSTeams. Many organizations are now gaining the benefits of having much larger prospect pools of talented resources, who are no longer constrained to just the commuter belt of the office. With the right planning, this gives us an opportunity to utilize the unique skills within more countries in a particular area or discipline that we perhaps may not have considered pre-pandemic.

3. Ecommerce & Omnichannel to thrive

How we are interacting with brands has also been evolving. A retail study by Accenture during the pandemic highlighted a 169% increase in new eCommerce purchases from customers that previously were not shopping online. Consumers are now sticking with a more omnichannel approach to consumerism, which increases the need to leverage omnichannel strategies to marketing.

How could we use this as an advantage?

One key advantage that you are likely to have if you are reading this is that your organization has already purchased and is using Adobe Campaign (AC). What needs to be considered now is the extent to which automation and integrations are being leveraged with AC to allow omnichannel marketing to flourish. This could include API integrations to eCommerce or social media platforms to accelerate the use of data for campaigning. Additionally and as an output to possible internal side gigs identified, companies can look at how more automation features can be leveraged to increase personalization while not at the expense of duration and effort in campaign production.

4. Changing Customer Segments

Two-thirds of consumers are now shopping primarily in neighborhood stores or buying more locally sourced products, commonly referred to as the Crib Economy. Even as many restrictions from Covid are lifted for many (depending on location and health trends), consumers are showing a reluctance to venture far from their neighborhoods and undertake the same type of activities as before. This includes things like ride-sharing, air travel and generally any activity where crowds are inherent. Additionally, there is the ever-increasing concept that consumers want to support their local business owners and promote their growth and success.

How could we use this as an advantage?

In order to build relationships with new and changing customer segments that the pandemic has created, localized content and personalization will need to be created and included in campaigns to tap into these new customer segments. By using marketing automation combined with data mining for test and learn campaigns, new and recurring campaign groups can be defined, refined and marketed to as part of  campaign programs.

5. Necessity of Zero- & First-Party

Many consumers now appreciate the tradeoff of providing zero-party data, which is providing permission for the use of first-party data collection for a more relevant and engaging communication experience. The trend across Europe with GDPR and North America with Apple’s recent privacy protection changes and 26 other US states now following similar bills (e.g., California’s CCPA) will make it increasingly harder to engage meaningfully with your customers. It’s important to capture the rights to market to your customers, so you have enough information about them to make the communication as personalized and meaningful as possible, while also adhering to current legislation.

How could we use this as an advantage?

There are several ways that capturing zero- and first-party data can be accelerated from your customers, starting from ensuring that there are integrations in place with Webinar and Survey platforms, to your marketing automation software. 2022 is also a great year to make sure that your preference center is opting down and not out of your customer’s communication preferences. Remember that first-party cookie collection is currently not going anywhere, so make sure that this data can be combined with what you already know about your customers to make automated communications timelier and more relevant. Surveys, preference requests and customer permissions that can lead to better segmentation, and therefore communication relevance, needs to be a 2022 priority.

Conclusion

Exploiting the cards that the pandemic has dealt us is a great way to line us up for the rest of 2022. What we need to be asking is, “Have we made the most of the staffing opportunities to diversify what we have been presented with? Have we done enough to motivate our staff with exciting projects and initiatives to keep them engaged and contributing to their unique skills for your efforts? Are we communicating enough with our customers directly to understand the channels they want to engage with us on and the new segment groups they have now become part of?” And perhaps most importantly, “Have we done enough permission-based data capture to ensure our communications stay relevant and engaging into 2023?” All are great questions for marketing executives and their teams to brainstorm on and use to update their communication initiatives in an ever-evolving market!

Like what we're thinking?

If you’d like to hear more about how our award-winning solutions, contact us today on inquiries@celerity-is.com.