Some say that marketing has been severely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. But if the "new normal" in the business world is teaching us anything, it is that marketing is more alive than ever. Not surprisingly: in a context of tight markets due both to restrictions on traditional forms of interaction and to the abrupt slowdown in economic activity, companies are more than ever in need of developing and exploiting the best possible techniques to make an impact on a restricted market. Marketing may have less budget, but it is more important than ever.
And if marketing is the new and obligatory language in the business world, this territory also has an accent that we at BRAINTRUST have been identifying and building since our early days: Customer Experience. We don't say it ourselves, but the Marketing Hot Trends report, prepared for the Spanish Marketing Association by Garlic B2B with the sponsorship of Adobe. For the almost 150 respondents who contributed to this document, Customer Experience is the main focus of marketing activity, which they rate 8.2 on a scale of 1 to 10 for its degree of importance in the tasks of their teams.
Importance of B2B/B2C. Image: B2B Committee
Customer Experience acts especially as a driving force in smaller companies, while in larger companies it is only surpassed by a factor whose relevance is largely due to the need for regulatory compliance, such as data, privacy and the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). If we stratify the business activity according to its target market, both in the case of those oriented towards the end consumer (B2C) and those oriented towards business (B2B), Customer Experience is also a leader as a marketing trend. Moreover, it is the undisputed leader in terms of both investment and the capacity declared by the companies surveyed to face the challenges posed by this discipline.
Importance according to company size. Image: B2B Committee
It is a relevant leadership, because the survey released by the Spanish Marketing Association specified up to 14 wide-ranging trends for the 149 respondents, all of them directors or area managers in marketing departments of companies of different sizes and sectors. And they are not exactly 14 small trends, as they include items as varied as performance marketing, automation, the emergence of agile technologies, ABM marketing (account marketing), programmatic advertising, artificial intelligence and influencer marketing.
This generalized first place for Customer Experience explains in part the also broad importance given to what the study calls emotional engagement, i.e., the emotional commitment of consumers to brands and vice versa. Companies naturally assume that attracting, retaining and expanding the market does not always and necessarily involve rational discourse, but that they must focus on what really "moves" their consumers. As is logical and natural, this trend is more prominent in small companies (2nd place) than in large ones (4th), and more so in B2C (2nd again) than in B2B (3rd), but in all cases it plays an important role.
Marketing investments. Image: B2B Committee
Also significant is the cross-study made with data from a similar survey for the United Kingdom, where the first two positions share prominence but in reverse order: firstly, GDPR and secondly, Customer Experience. In the British report, emotional engagement drops to eighth place and marketing automation (4th position in the study for Spain) is the trend that completes this particular podium. It is also representative that in both cases augmented reality occupies the red lantern (last position) and that positions 10 to 13 are the same in both cases, although in a different order. Thus, influencer marketing, predictive marketing, programmatic advertising and artificial intelligence are, at present, the "poor relations" of marketing in both Spain and the UK.
The report was presented on October 7 at an online conference organized by the new B2B Marketing Committee, which included a round table to discuss emotional engagement. In it, the experts agreed that Customer Experience is fundamental in the B2B sector since "we are in the era of experience", in which the aim is to ensure that the customer has a "positive experience" and that this must "always be at the top", according to information published on the website of the Spanish Marketing Association.
A report that confirms our position as a specialised consultancy. Customer Experience is a must for any company that wants to take itself seriously. And it should be an indelible hallmark of all marketing activity. Because yes, Customer Experience and marketing are more alive than ever. Even in times of COVID-19. Or, precisely, because they are in such complicated and uncertain times.
Header image Leonardo Toshiro Okubo on Unsplash
Study images: B2B Marketing Committee MHT 2020 Study
Prepared by: APP/EKMB/BTCS
