Marketers must be, by nature, adaptive. Our practice today looks much different from the way it did five years ago, and it will look even more different just one year from today.
For those who, like myself, have been in the field awhile, the phrase “yesterday’s marketing” refers to print ads and billboards — an era before tracking or justifying ROI (a problem that has in many ways been rectified in today’s digital world). For those who are newer to the field, “yesterday’s marketing” was “spray and pray.” Today, it has become inconceivable to blast out the same message to every consumer.
Omnichannel used to be the “adaptive” marketing strategy du jour. The intention was to help marketers reach their customers on every channel. However, that strategy is fundamentally flawed because it’s the bare minimum approach to engagement, and it certainly does not enable marketers to interact with the individual. Today, in the Engagement Economy, consumers demand personalized and authentic experiences on their preferred channels and in ways that matter to them. In other words, buyers expect brands to adapt to their needs to win their loyalty.
Marketers, and anyone involved in the customer experience, must adapt to adaptive marketing. Sounds redundant, right? But adaptive marketing is essential for success in today’s digital world. In the Engagement Economy, where everyone and everything are more connected than ever before, it shouldn’t be who your customers are that determines the messages they receive, it should be what they do.
The key to adaptive marketing in the Engagement Economy is to listen, learn and engage at scale. Here’s why.
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