Following on from The Marketing Leaders Guide to 2022, I interviewed Marketing Lead Simon Swan, Simon tackles seven questions to help you shape your 2022.
1. What was your biggest Marketing lessons
Don’t make assumptions: Every business, it’s objectives and goals are different so it’s important to get into the facts and details as to key lessons learnt through 2021.
Don’t assume what gets written is relevant for your business. Look to understand your audience, your business goals and apply the right marketing approach based on what works for your business
2. Most important skills in 2022?
To understand the wider business strategy and goals and where it aims to be getting. To be able to articulate the role of the marketing function both internally to teams and supporting teams as well as supporting agencies and functions.
As well as the hard skills, collaboration has become an essential skill, especially when operating in virtual environments, away from the wider teams.
Collaboration has become a lot more of an essential skill (rightly so) to build new networks and ways of working across the organisation and externally with agencies
3. Which channel do you expect to explode in popularity?
Depending on diagnosing the channels fit for your business, the role of brand building through search will still play a vital role in growing the mental availability.
As covid hit so did the role of search as a key category entry point for many users entering specific verticals.
For many organisations, they are sitting on a wealth of content and information to help users better understand the industry and sector and this will prove to be an important asset in growing an organisations visibility through search
4. Which brands really impressed you in 2021?
Boots – “Feel good as new” – An established and trusted brand tapping into the theme emerging from lockdown and highlighting Boots relevance in modern life
Extra Gum: Says it all and timed really well as we were all coming out of lockdown and the need for us all to freshen up as we started to meet again. Really chimed well both in the music used and the role of the product
5. Big 3 Marketing Predictions
1. Ecommerce growth will begin to settle/reduce – the lockdown for many sectors saw sharp increases in eCommerce contribution to total business but as we emerge (hopefully!) from the lockdowns and the high st reopens, so too will eCommerce channels see declines. That’s not to say it becomes less important, mores that companies will begin to realise the importance of omnichannel and not to treat offline v online in silos
2. Monitoring and Measuring – the role of digital and how it should be measured for brands will become more important as marketing budgets get squeezed. Agencies and in house marketing teams will be needing to justify and explain how specific tactics are being used to benefit and meet the wider business goals
3. Recruitment – Hiring the right skills and people within roles. The demand for good marketers will increase and specifically people who can demonstrate practical skills of delivering on the tactical elements of marketing and have moved into strategy. Finding people that have worked both in strategy and tactics and can mentor and provide focus will become essential – something I’m reading a lot about is the gig mindset
6. Keeping their company up to date with industry shifts?
First kick off some listening sessions across your organisation speaking to different depts to understand their needs in being kept up to date and then look to run in house “learning sessions”- this could be inviting people externally into the business with case studies and then internal teams presenting practical examples of what the business is doing.
Also ringfencing test and learn budgets to try new ways of working with a forum to report back on the success and learnings
7) Best piece of Advice managing fellow team members
Hire for attitude, the tactics can be taught and developed.
Read The Marketing Leaders Guide To 2022
Read Simon’s brand book 2021 answers:
