The Importance of Marketing in the Post-Pandemic World

Marketing has always been one of the key prerequisites to business success as it allowed them to promote and sell their products and services to a niche audience strategically. However, the COVID-19 pandemic has transformed markets worldwide, and the new dynamics are driving unforeseen shifts in the marketing function.

This once-in-a-generation event forced thousands of businesses to accelerate their digital transformation initiatives to cope with volatility and uncertainty, and ensure business continuity. As a result of this shift, they unfolded many opportunities, threats, market gaps, and trends that needed to be explored. Thus, marketing has become more important in the new normal than ever before.

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Why Marketing Matters in the New Normal More than Ever

Consumer expectations were already sky-high even before the events of 2020. Millennials and Gen Z had technology seamlessly integrated into their daily lives. More importantly, they were rapidly getting accustomed to hyper-personalization by direct-to-consumer companies that used their personal data to market key products and services.

However, when the pandemic hit, it sent digital transformation initiatives into overdrive. This, in turn, sent consumer expectations to new heights in terms of how companies would approach them during this period. In a world where digitalization was already growing, customers expected seamless digital interactions and transactions.

With the bars constantly rising, marketers must now aspire to new standards around customer experiences – in both B2B and B2C contexts. Consumers expect zero friction, 100% relevance, and round-the-clock availability. In other words, their main concern is getting what they want, and if you’re unable to cater to their needs, they will look for a solution somewhere else.

However, this is just the tip of the iceberg. Here are some changes that highlight the growing importance of marketing in the post-pandemic world:

Business Operation Transformation

Non-essential businesses that were forced to shut down in-person operations had to revamp their marketing goals and strategy. With physical marketing events, trials, and tastings put on hold until further notice, many companies lost the edge physical experiences provided. Now, it was all about shifting to virtual opportunities and getting early-bird benefits in their respective industries.

As things progressed, digital and virtual marketing methods became the new norm, especially with the emergence of augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) technologies that allowed brands to give consumers new experiences from the convenience of their mobile devices.

Secondly, the surge in social media traffic also enabled businesses to shrink their lead generation funnels and customer journeys drastically. With this shift in business operations, businesses must keep up with the new developments and adopt the latest marketing trends to stay relevant.

Big Brand Power

For decades, leading brands have always dominated the market share in their respective industries. However, following the events of the pandemic, many consumers opted for big names due to faster delivery times, better pricing, and a greater variety of products and services. This indicated a massive shift towards convenience, something many small businesses and startups weren’t able to provide – at least not to the level of the big boys.

As a result, marketing matters now more than ever as SMEs have to compete with big brand offerings and look for ways to stand out. Although digital marketing has leveled the playing field, they have to increase their marketing efforts to stay on top and find creative ways to lure their target audience towards them and increase their market share.

Change in Consumer Emotions

The pandemic altered the lifestyle of millions of people. As one of the main psychographic segments along with personality, social class, interest, etc., this forced an unprecedented change in marketing material.

For example, when thousands of families couldn’t meet their loved ones during the holidays due to lockdowns, marketers had to adapt their ads, commercials, and promotional content to account for these changes so they don’t come across as insensitive.

Simply put, there has been a great shift in how campaigns are placed and positioned. Therefore, businesses must be delicate in the messages they send out to consumers and be aware tp the sensitivity of circumstances.

Digital Acceleration

For a long time, marketing was mainly about purchasing mass or targeted data at competitive rates and trying to convert it. Simply put, it was like heading to a bar to meet many people in the hunt for that special someone. This marketing age was filled with spontaneity and serendipity – not to mention a ton of physical encounters.

Now, all you need to do is download an online dating app to find your perfect match and rely on data and algorithms instead of luck and chance. In marketing terms, this symbolizes the shift from brand marketing to performance marketing. Now companies are more concerned with generating leads than building reach to speed up the purchase journey.

Relationship Evolution

One of the main marketing functions is to build relationships with customers and gain their trust. Every brand makes a promise and delivers it via its products, services, and even customer service. However, COVID-19 placed a new emphasis on consumer relationships due to the influx of virtual business environments as teams were unable to maintain revenue momentum in the early days, especially from new acquisitions.

In the new normal, marketers require a set of skills focused on selling solutions, not products and services.

Bottom Line      

It’s safe to say that the business world has experienced a lot of setbacks since the start of the pandemic in 2020. However, as we rapidly move into the new normal, businesses need to prioritize marketing over any other function to ensure continuity and drive success. With a lot of uncertainty still lingering, they need to build and maintain a solid connection with consumers during these turbulent times.

It’s a do-or-die world out there today with the stakes for marketing skyrocketing. So, if you’re going to weather the current shift in consumer behavior and market trends, you need to up your marketing game at every level of operations.