Using adversity to your advantage

Strategy is not only possible in the age of uncertainty—it is critical.

The speed at which clients can adapt and leverage the changes brought on by COVID19 will impact how well they can restart their businesses and marketing.

We know that uncertainty is uncomfortable—we have felt it profoundly in our own business and personal lives. However, we also know that strategy mitigates fear and helps to win battles. Never underestimate the power of focus and a renewed commitment within organizations. In our work with clients over the past few months, we have seen tremendous resolve, optimism, and willingness to reimagine what is possible. The pandemic has forced many to accelerate their business models and innovate, pivot, and streamline in ways that will make their companies more viable for the long haul.

If you are feeling the weight of uncertainty, consider working through the following questions with your executive team.

1. What has changed with respect to your business short-term and potentially forever?
2. What new trends have emerged that will significantly affect your business? What are the implications for business and marketing?
3. What problem do you solve for your customer? Has it changed? Do you need to look at new ways to solve that problem?
4. Considering all the change, is your positioning still relevant? What do you do best relative to your competitors and that is valued by your target?
5. Who is your primary audience and has it changed? Will you target the same audience or look to target other audiences?
6. What is your promise to your primary audience and what makes it believable? You need to dig deep to find tangible proof points—proof points that you deliver with extraordinary distinction.
7. Is the way you express your promise still relevant in the new world? Is the way you communicate unique, meaningful to your target, easy to understand? Will it get noticed and will it drive action?
8. Given all the above, what does it mean to your marketing strategy? As you map out your prospect’s journey and how to best keep them moving toward your desired action, what channels and tactics will you keep, add, or eliminate?
9. Digital is a critical part of today’s business and marketing strategies. How does your organization use digital to create a competitive advantage that will help it attract and grow relationships with your most valuable audiences? Once your business strategy is set, there are many digital marketing strategies and tactics to help you achieve your goals—make sure you know what they are (i.e. it’s a lot more than social media) and then implement, monitor, and refine your tactics to meet and surpass your goals.
10. Finally, in terms of refining, do you have a metrics dashboard to track your marketing performance data, and then the skill to identify the key patterns and interpret their meaning?

If you need help weaving your way through these questions, give us a shout. Working together, we can use uncertainty to your advantage and help you carve a new and better path forward.