13 Ways Professionals Can Adapt To A Changing Marketing Landscape

The global pandemic has signaled a death-knell for brick-and-mortar locations, with several large chain stores closing outlets all around the country. Smaller "mom-and-pop" type stores have already shut, unable to maintain their profits with such low margins.  

E-commerce has emerged as a savior to many of these small and medium enterprises. This adoption provides a unique window for professionals in both communications and marketing to pivot. To adapt to this new reality, marketing professionals have to change how they think. To this end, 13 experts from Forbes Communications Council examine how professionals can make the best of the changing marketing landscape and adapt to the "new normal."

1. Tweak Strategies To Reach Remote Audiences
From online education (think public and private schools and digital knowledge-based courses) to healthcare (think Zoom appointments with your doctor), communications/marketing professionals will need to tweak their strategies for reaching these audiences. We will need to become savvy online marketers in order to serve consumers where they are, understand their new needs, and message accordingly. - Marisa Salcines

2. Start By Tracking Your Audience's Activities
With e-commerce businesses on the rise, you can actually track your audience's activities on your store — something you can't do with brick-and-mortar retail — and analyze that data to make your brand aligned with audience needs. Moreover, you can introduce an A-Z model of strategies to optimize how you run your store, from targeting, to sales, to building a community around your brand objectives. - Haseeb Tariq,  Universal Music Group (ex Disney, Fox and Guess)

3. Continue Focusing On Omnichannel Experiences
The global pandemic has caused businesses to pivot their business to operate online. While digital is more prominent, the focus on omnichannel experiences doesn't change. People still shop online and pick up at a store, for example, so leaders must measure the entire customer experience and apply best practices in a holistic way to keep customers happy and brand-loyal. - Stacy Sherman, Customer Experience Expert

4. Aim To Provide Optionality And Flexibility
Brick and mortar and e-commerce are no longer mutually exclusive; it's all about having a hybrid model. The option to buy online but pick up in store continues to grow YoY. Customers are looking for optionality and flexibility via integrated e-commerce, social networking sites, vertically-integrated platforms and more. - Colson Hillier, Alorica

5. Use Automated, Personalized Digital Marketing
During this pandemic, we see retail continuing to shift to a digital-first strategy, along with the budget. Marketing professionals can adapt to a new way of building one-on-one relationships with consumers to drive sales using automated, personalized digital marketing — combining first-party data, contextual data and insight from consumers' purchase paths across all channels. - Anna Luo, Jivox

6. Make Your Message Authentic And Impactful
It's not a significant change but more of a rapid advancement of what we've known. We are living in the fourth industrial revolution powered by a digital, globally-connected, remote workforce-enabled economy. Marketers need to ensure their message reaches their audience wherever they may be in an authentic and impactful way. Content marketing and storytelling is the best way to do that. -Ahmad Daher,  Envijo

7. Focus On Education, Not Impulse
Focus on education, not impulse. Brick-and-mortar retail has always had one significant trick up its sleeve — the longer customers spend in their store, the more likely they are to impulse-buy. With the rise of e-commerce, the power has shifted to the consumer, choosing what and when they buy. In this era, it is better to focus on educating customers because it's never been easier for them to close a tab. -Patrick Ward,  Rootstrap

8. Always Provide Value In Your Emails
The rise of e-commerce due to brick-and-mortar retail is going to change marketing in many ways. One way is that there is going to be an influx of emails in consumers' email boxes. Instead of just sharing a sale ad, make it more beneficial by showcasing entire outfits and highlighting a designer — something that makes people want to read your email. - Heidi Green,  BrightMove, Inc.

9. Create Impulse-Buy Opportunities For Curbside
Curbside pickup is exploding, along with e-commerce in general. Marketers need to recreate in the curbside experience the impulse-buy opportunities found in store. Curbside provides a natural, regular and needed communication channel between retailer and consumer with every order. Personalized and relevant additional product messaging in order-confirmation and order-ready emails is a big opportunity. -  Indy Guha, Signifyd

10. Find Digital Alternatives To Physical Experiences
The decline of traditional retail is challenging marketing to come up with digital alternatives for physical product/brand experiences. How will brands enable shoppers to try out products in store, touch fabrics, smell scents, etc? And without these experiences, how does marketing convince first-time shoppers? Credible consumer recommendations, how-to videos and reviews on e-commerce might help. -  Rafael Schwarz, TERRITORY Influence (a Bertelsmann group company)

11. Plan Your Marketing Investment For Results
While businesses struggle to keep their doors open, we must begin to recognize the power that lies within effective digital marketing. As more businesses shift to a digital-first strategy, plan your online marketing investment for results, not just clicks. - Jessica Wong,Valux, LLC

12. Collect, Unify, Utilize Consumer Data
With the unprecedented shift to digital during this global pandemic, the amount of data available about customer interactions has exploded. Companies who struggled to manage customer data before, now have an even bigger challenge. Marketers will increasingly need to to collect, unify and utilize this data in their messaging and campaigns using customer data platforms or similar technologies. -Tom Treanor,  Treasure Data

13. Leverage The Right Technology
Remote offices, learning and entertainment have created broad acceptance of video tools that can bring store associates closer to the consumer in their home. In-person shopping is no longer a pastime — so brick-and-mortar stores need to get closer to their customers than ever using technology to introduce new products, answer questions, and make the sale. - Dan Wallace-Brewster,   Scalefast  

The article was originally published on Forbes.com at https://bit.ly/38SRr5m. Learn more about Alorica Retail Customer Service Solutions on our website.