Learning to Adapt

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 Marketing & Strategy

Apr 22, 2010 | Total views: 13

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I’ve spent the last few days in Los Angeles at Forrester’s Marketing Forum. As usual, I come away with a lot of interesting ideas and wondering which ones we can use to improve our marketing strategy at MindTree. This morning, I listened to Forrester Vice President David Cooperstein; Nickelodeon Chief Marketing Officer Pamela Kaufman; and Intercontinental Hotels Group SVP, Relationship Marketing Steven Sickel. All their keynote speeches had a common issue they are dealing with at their organizations: Adaptive marketing.

All of us in marketing deal with change and these three thought leaders implored the audience to embrace the change, to not be afraid of it. The winners will be those of us who devise a flexible approach to our respective markets to align our customer with our brand.

Easier said than done, right? We’re all working towards moving our marketing spend from traditional to non-traditional marketing. Today, that means Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and other social media channels. But tomorrow, this could mean using FourSquare and other hyper local tracking platforms to engage with consumers; e-Readers; and even social gaming. How do we know when to consider these new emerging trends in our business?

The following 3 steps were recommended to the marketers in the audience:

• Think and Move Differently
• Listen More, React intelligently
• Target People, not Statistics

The first two probably don’t require much conversation, but I found the last one particularly interesting and relevant. As marketers, we’ve almost become mercenaries to data. We view our customers as men, ages 18-49; or women, ages 25-44 with 2:1 kids. Instead, shouldn’t we looking at them as women, ages 25-44, but with 2 toddlers or 2 teenagers, whatever the case may be? After all, I expect any B2C marketer worth his/her paycheck would treat a potential customer differently if they knew their customer had teenagers as opposed to toddlers, right?

In conclusion:

Customers evolve. We need to follow them on their own terms. They are in control. Experiment with new trends, real-Time. See what works. In other words, ADAPT.