Human connection to shape marketing in 2020, according to Deloitte

Emerging technologies are making it more important than ever to put the human at the centre of the next marketing trends. Deloitte explores the key trends we need to know.

Author
Date published
February 21, 2020 Categories

30-second summary:

  • A human-first philosophy in brands starts from the internal processes before it moves to the clients
  • The CMOs have a great opportunity to serve as evangelists of agility, consumer participation and transparency to build trust
  • Consumers are becoming more demanding and they expect from brands to stay authentic to their purpose and transparent with the use of data
  • We need to listen to our consumers and the target audience to ensure that we deliver the best experience for them

It’s the time of the year that we look at the upcoming marketing trends and how they will affect our strategies for the rest of the year. Right before deciding on the next marketing technology to use, we need to go to the root of every trend. Deloitte has released its first Marketing Trends report exploring how to bring authenticity to the digital age. Their seven key marketing trends for 2020 are all including a human-first philosophy that can help brands make an impact.

Here’s everything you need to know on how to embrace a human-centred approach in your marketing strategy in 2020.

Leading with purpose

Brands having a clear purpose are able to forge deeper relations with consumers. It’s interesting to see that purpose-driven company grow on average three times faster than their competitors.

A clear purpose is key to every relationship internally and externally for an organisation. Loyalty, employee retention and customer satisfaction can help the company meet all its future goals.

What is also important though is to be able to embody your purpose into all the aspects of your business.

Deloitte’s consumer survey indicated that 80% of consumers are willing to pay more if a brand raised its prices to be more socially and environmentally responsible. At the same time, consumers are becoming more aware of the social changes and how brands can sometimes jump into important causes without a clear objective behind it.

The best way to communicate purpose is to be authentic and transparent. Authentic stories can bring you closer to your consumers. Transparency can develop trust and long-term relationships.

How can the CMOs adjust to this trend?

Serve as the “ambassador” of purpose in C-Suite and reflect it on all areas of your work. Lead with purpose and make sure you communicate how your messaging and strategies live to your brand values.

Reducing the experience debt by elevating the human experience

In a world that changes happen at a very rapid pace, it’s easy for many people to stay behind. It’s common to pick the easy option today rather than the hard choice of tomorrow.

The so-called ‘experience debt’ refers to the cases that businesses go with the ‘easy option of today’ to help their users while leaving behind the bigger questions of tomorrow. The best way to reduce the experience debt that piles up is to elevate the human experience.

There’s no need to make things complicated to keep up with the times when you can build products that your users really need.

Designing with empathy can help your business put the human experience at the centre of all decisions. Digital change becomes more meaningful and you are increasing the chances of business success. It’s up to us to decide how we use technology to build more meaningful relationships with consumers.

How can the CMOs adjust to this trend?

Focus on designing consumer-focused experiences that can be valuable both in the short and long term. Bring different teams together to explore how human-centred design can work for your business.

Building trust in the digital world

Building trust in the digital era is not always easy. Brands need to be open across all areas of their business to help the customers trust them. Safety, privacy, data protection, regulation are only a few of the cases that brands need to consider.

Protecting customer’s data is vital to deliver good customer experience. Customers are more cautious nowadays. In fact, 53% of customers said they would not use a product that sells the data for profit.

That’s why it’s important for brands nowadays to be transparent with the use of data to build trust.

How can the CMOs adjust to this trend?

Find what the customers expect from your brand to feel safe and trust you. Communicate the customers’ needs through data privacy and any risks that could potentially harm your business.

Turning consumers into brand advocates

Consumer participation can be the key to success in a human-centred marketing strategy. More brands are already involving their consumers in all the stages of their journey to keep them engaged.

An engaged consumer can become a brand ambassador with higher chances of staying loyal to the brand.

According to Deloitte, here are the key thematic areas that brands are helping drive participation:

The ultimate goal is to bring the consumers together to make them feel empowered. From a brand perspective, the empowering the consumers leads to loyalty, customer satisfaction and most importantly, an improved customer experience.

How can the CMOs adjust to this trend?

Explore how consumer participation can be part of your brand’s strategy. Whether it’s user-generated content, building a community or encouraging collaboration, there are many ways to earn a competitive advantage by empowering your consumers.

Getting everyone to be more agile

Brands constantly need to be ahead of the market and this requires innovative thinking. An agile approach throughout the company can improve both internal and external processes.

An agile marketing approach requires a fresh perspective, keeping up with the tech changes but also breaking the silos among teams to deliver the best experiences.

Marketing technology allows brands to build organic conversations and moments that matter. But they also need to diffuse agility in the organisation.

Being cross-functional allows you to bring the teams together to work towards common objectives. From cross-team meetings and regular updates, CMOs are facing a big opportunity to become the evangelists of agility.

How can the CMOs adjust to this trend?

The larger the organisation the harder it is to be agile. That’s why it’s important from someone in the C-suite like the CMO to promote the importance of an agile approach that will improve the customer experience.  It’s time to put the customer at the focus and explore the most appropriate ways to deliver the best experience.

Takeaway

Every brand needs to seize the power of emerging technologies to stand out and beat the competition. But we also need to remember that not all consumers are keeping up-to-date with the changing tech landscape.

That’s when brands need to put their consumers at the centre of their strategies. There’s no need to reduce innovation to reduce the experience debt that is building up. All they need is to elevate the human experience in every aspect of their work.

What can we learn from Deloitte’s report?


You can read the full report here.

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