By Michael Desroches
In the not-so-distant past (think pre-pandemic) business owners and marketers alike used to talk about a digital marketing strategy, whether or not their business actually needed to understand or pursue one, and how aggressively to implement one if they did.
Those times have obviously changed. Dramatically.
I was reading through marketing trend predictions for 2022 and beyond from several sources this weekend and was struck by the fact that they were all digital.
All of them.
Of course we know this intellectually. Our lives have shifted from business lunches and school bus pickups to Zoom meetings and online classes.
Likewise, most businesses that are still strong have shifted marketing gears to move things online, whether those are business meetings, events or ad campaigns. For lack of a better word, they have pivoted.
Yet in many cases, that has meant changing tactics – not altering strategy.
And it’s your business’ overall strategy that has to change if you hope to succeed as we begin to come out of the world we are in and enter that grossly overused term - “the new normal.”
You see, many of the things that we have come to expect over the past year will be with us long after the pandemic has passed. Now that we know we can do things online, many of us may prefer to handle some things in that manner. Now that we don’t get bombarded by sales calls on our office lines, we bristle when a random call comes to our cell phones. Now that we don’t get endless catalogs and mailers at work, we don’t like when we have to recycle them at home.
At the same time, we are all more inundated by digital messages. Our inboxes are more cluttered, our social media is more polarized, and our attention span is shorter.
Marketing that counteracts all that starts from the premise that marketing is primarily digital. Even when we see each other in person, without masks, we’ll reach for our phones to memorialize the moments.
How does your business change its mindset to deal with that? To effectively implement all the amazing tools that we will be seeing over the next few years – whether that’s the interactive email technology that is coming, the AI now in its marketing infancy, or the certain rise of voice search.
It starts from accepting the new reality and then proactively building a marketing strategy around it, rather than reacting to it.
Need help getting there? Reach out to me and we’ll talk.
About Michael Desroches
Michael Desroches is an executive marketing consultant, brand strategist, speaker, trainer and mentor. The Founder and Principal of Woodbridge, Connecticut-based Brand Inspiration has spent more than two decades helping corporations, nonprofit organizations, mid-sized companies and small businesses here in the northeast and across the country. He and his team help clients uncover their most unique traits and translate them into creative marketing that inspires donors to give, customers to buy, and people to trust. Learn more at www.michaeldesrochesonline.com.
