Here we are are a year from our original lockdown and, here in the UK we are still under lockdown.

The vastness of the pandemic is starting to dawn on people and while there is a massive vaccination program underway, it's not clear, as I write if these new variants can be stopped by the current vaccination.  Doctors are now warning that the Covid 19 vaccination will now probably be annual, like the flu jab and the pharmaceutical industry, here in the UK is gearing up for that.  Not good news, I know.

What does that means for business?

It would seem that CMOs were expecting a "bounce back" having budgets restored, where as the rest of the business, CFO, CEO, are expecting, that 2021 is going to be like 2020.  The savvy Business Leaders will be "planning for the worst and hoping for the best"

The problem for Marketing, to quote Gartner is 

“Marketing has been clearly identified as a function earmarked for cuts.”

The report from Gartner does make some interesting suggestions, for a start "CMO plans to rescale and reinvent". They go on to say

"Marketing executives need to develop their own skills to address the capacity and capital challenges they will face again this year."

We need to have an "adult conversation" with ourselves and our teams, what may have worked before the pandemic, isn't working now.

We have a client that decided to benchmark DLA Ignite and our social / digital / virtual / remote selling methodology against an advertising campaign.  They have dropped the advertising campaign and have doubled down on social.  We also had a company that decided to benchmark us against an email campaign. The email campaign has been dropped.  

Come on, it's time for some "adult conversations" in your marketing department. 

Marketing need to stop all the old legacy marketing methods that no longer work and start betting on social.  We all know that any form of "interruption" and broadcast marketing, sometimes called "push marketing" just is not relevant today.  Advertising, cold calling, email marketing should all be thrown in the bin of legacy marketing and your budget and your business muse switch to where your prospects and clients are, on social media.

Shifting Buyer Preferences

We have seen shifting buyer work as everybody is online, in this January (2021) report by Simon Kemp outlines the extent that social media has become part of our lives.  

Worldwide social media users: 4.2 billion - 53.6% of the world's population use social media.

Simon says that "two thirds of the working population in the world is now active on social media."   Your customers, whoever they are  ..... are online.  Even more so in this post-pandemic world.  

Research From All These Companies Back This up

Mckinsey say so, Gartner say so, Hootsuite and We Are Social say so, Hubspot say so, Google say so, MIT say so, Trustradius say so Twilio say so .... 

A CEO Just Said to Me

 "there is a race on.  First we need to shock people into understanding that the world has changed.  Second, we need to give them the skills to work in the changing world."  

He went onto say "By giving my team(s) “new world” skills will gives us a competitive advantage."

Interesting that he finished by saying

"The thing is there is a “burning bridge” and we need to make sure we are over that bridge."  

Who's doing this?

Case Study 1.

This is Eric, he's one of the team at DLA Ignite here is a post that he put up, it only took him 10 minutes to create.  We have all seen posts like this, we see them everyday, but people treat social tactically.  You post, because you think you have to or somebody tells you you should and walk away.  Let's talk about this post. 

 Eric's post of his 16 year old son, Austin, on his Birthday got 18,000 views and 165 likes?

But better still, he got 6 - C-Level meetings from this post?  How?

Let's stop and think about this for a second.  This post took 10 minutes to create and it got 6 C-Level meetings, how come?

Because, all of Eric's post are strategic.  He knows exactly why he is posting it and knows how to monetise it.

He doesn't always post "humanised" content, I'm using this as an example.  But an example of why you need to get your employees and sales team on social, just think of the $ impact to your business.  Especially if you scaled this across your business. 

How does Eric do this?  He builds relationships with prospects and customers and because they have a relationship with a human, not a brand, people are happy to engage.  Eric is also able to cut through the myrmid of noise that brands keep putting out.  If you are a buyer, where will you spend your time?  Reading an advert that says "buy my product because it's great" or look for the insight and educational content that people like Eric is putting out?

Case Study 2

In this case study, Danielle Guzman, talks about how Mercer, empower their employees to talk on social.  The ROI (return on investment)?  Danielle explains how Mercer as a brand will develop the business a certain amount of business, because they are well known in certain markets.  She also confirms in this video how empowering people on social and giving them personal brands gives Mercer 4 times more revenue than the brand. 

Don’t Let Fears or Misconceptions About Digitizing Hold Your Back

A recent article about digital transformation in the insurance industry was quoted as saying.

"McKinsey research shows that investing in .... digitizing processes can result in savings of up to 80 percent. This comes on top of the improved customer experience, faster time to settlement, and more policies signed. .... Insurers can allay their fears about investing in new technology by making compliance a priority, getting all stakeholders aligned around digital transformation, ensuring the technology scales, and working around the constraints of legacy back-end systems."

Sounds like plan? 

Where Do We Go From Here?

Just give me, or one of the DLA Ignite team and hour of your time and we can walk you through the massive impact we make with social for other companies.  No hard sell, just take you through what other companies are doing to generate pipeline during a pandemic.  More importantly how we can make an impact immediately. 

DLA Ignite is a global company, we have people who can support you, in your local language and will understand, cultural sensitivities.  We also have vertical market experts, supporting businesses in different sectors.  Please contact me here and I can direct you to the right DLA Ignite person who can help you can look at our DLA Ignite team here.  Our website is here.