5 ways to upskill your digital marketing team in 2020

During times like these, every interaction with your customers is an opportunity to demonstrate what lies at the heart of your organisation. Purpose-based companies that show empathy will likely emerge as the leaders. The first step in showing you care is to reach out – not for marketing or selling – but to offer genuine support, guidance, and advice. Although a seemingly contradictory piece of advice for marketing professionals, holding off on the hard sell and focusing instead on nurturing the consumer is exactly what you need to be doing to instill trust and loyalty in your brand.

So, if you’re using the same old (pre-Covid) marketing, change it. The fastest way to lose customers is to send out a sales pitch. Now is the time to keep your network moving forward. Show them you care more about helping their business than simply getting their business.

Over the years, we’ve seen varying degrees of e-service adoption. Banking has had relatively higher penetration, along with media and entertainment. But now, people are not only increasingly buying online, they expect to perform other tasks and access a multitude of services as well.

For marketers, this increasing consumer confidence in the use of e-services suggests a potential surge in demand and an opportunity to create new connections. You might consider developing partner ecosystems. As services proliferate, it’ll be more important than ever for your marketing team to think of their brands in the context of an interconnected service “platforms.”

Self-service, touchless, virtual meetings, e-commerce – all digital communication channels have now become a necessity adopted by most customers. In order to survive in the digital era, you too must pivot and accelerate with these channels and offerings.

Consider offering your customers a free 90-day trial of your product, or outsourcing software that will maximise the potential and accessibility of your own. By making this shift and delivering superior digital experiences that speak to the needs of your customers, you are far more likely to increase adoption and maintain these business relationships into the future.

Using big data and analytics has always been on a steady growth trajectory but since the global pandemic, the need for data is even greater. As businesses re-open in phases, using data and analytics for contact tracing and to help make other important workplace decisions is becoming a necessity. Recent announcements from big tech companies including Microsoft, Oracle, Cisco and Salesforce focus on developing data driven tools to help bring employees back to work safely — some even offering it for free to its customers.

For faster, more efficient and smarter organisations, marketing teams need to be able to translate data into actionable strategies. One way to upskill your digital marketing team is by encouraging them to browse the Google Analytics Academy. It’s a great route into data and is beneficial for anyone working within digital marketing.

In recent months, the home has become a multifunctional hub; an office, a school and for many, a shopping centre. As a growing number of organisations attempt to sustain some of the advantages of remote working, marketers will need to engage with smart devices and interfaces across the home in order to reflect the desires of the new consumer.

Your marketing team should take this as an opportunity to rethink their media mix across a larger set of channels, including video conferencing platforms, maybe even virtual reality. The trick for marketers when navigating this ‘homebody economy’ is to find ways of integrating their services into the products already anchored in the home.

The new normal, while imbued with challenges and uncertainties, brings with it a wealth of opportunities for marketing teams. It provides a chance to reconfigure the layout of the old marketing playbook – and rewrite a few chapters. To ensure your business is ready for the new world, consider how you can upskill your digital marketing team. By using the right tools and methods, you can maximise your team’s productivity while meeting your business demands.