A quick request as we bid farewell to the horror that was 2020 and prepare for what we all hope and pray is going to be a much better 2021: can you please tell us what you expect your biggest marketing challenge(s) to be in the year ahead?
We have been asking this question of a number of marketers over the last month or so, and also gathering data online. We’ll tell you why in a moment, but here are some of the more universal marketing challenges that we have identified so far:
- Getting More Leads
- Generating Brand Awareness
- Increasing My Website’s Overall Traffic
- Planning a Comprehensive Marketing Strategy
- Converting Leads to Buyers
- Aligning Sales and Marketing
- Keeping Up With the Latest Trends
- Content Creation
- Targeting Buyers Effectively
- Increasing My Website’s Keyword Rankings on Google
- Increasing, Reporting and Proving Marketing’s ROI
- Educating Prospects/Buyers
To be honest, those challenges aren’t particularly new. But there are also plenty of new challenges brought about by Covid-19, including:
- Marketers have moved away from long-term planning and are in more short-term reactive mode.
- Budget cuts are hitting brand advertising, agency fees and sponsorships/partnerships.
- A move to more direct-to-consumer activity in 2021.
- Rapidly changing marketing mix and messaging
- Heightened focus on brand perception
- Increased need to understand and apply technology
And these are some marketing challenges that were already happening but have simply been exacerbated during the coronavirus:
- Handling certain market uncertainty
- Accelerated digital transformation
- Improving customer experience
- Delivering personalisation
- Leveraging AI and machine learning
- Identifying the right technology
- Managing organisational change
- Speeding up time-to-market
- Data privacy and security regulations
Do any of those resonate with your business? Or are there other, more significant challenges that you are facing?
So why are we asking the question?
The marketplace is always changing. But the coronavirus has torn the heart out of many old-style marketing strategies.
It’s time to identify new strategies and innovative new approaches to your marketing in the year ahead.
We’re about to launch a major new initiative, designed to address the challenges faced by Kiwi marketers today and provide innovative, insightful approaches and solutions.
We’ve been giving advice to, and solving problems for, marketers for many years and we believe that we’ve come up with many valuable insights, drawing from our own experience and from smart stories and examples from around the world, that can really make a difference in 2021.
But, before we launch the new program, we want to make sure that it really covers everything.
So can you help us out, please (it should only take a couple of minutes) and let us know what your biggest marketing challenges are right now?
Just drop us a quick email to info@socialmedia.org.nz and share your challenges.
Thanks so much.
