Trisca Scott-Branagan
I commend all you marketers who at the start of 2020 had your annual marketing plans ripped to shreds and new ones developed within days – sometimes hours! Your ability to adapt, negotiate, create, innovate and survive through such an uncertain year is something to celebrate (once you’ve recovered that is!). I am delighted at how you have shifted further into the digital world and not only engaged but also delighted customers through virtual interactions blended with direct mail delivery. It took courage to do what you have done.
This year’s report reiterates many of the challenges you have faced into. It’s been a challenging year to measure brand and marketing performance, optimise customer experience, and embed account based marketing. Yet these challenges aren’t unique to 2020. What is unique to 2020 is how you’ve changed your engagement with customers – for the better! Those who thrive in the years ahead, have invested time in being empathetic to your customer’s journeys, created authentic interactions, and (where budget permitted) enabled the digital capability to do so. Because you know that building meaningful relationships is all about being there for the moments that matter most to your customers – wherever they are, and wherever they want to interact with you.
I wish you all a safe year ahead, filled with the things that are most valued to you (and your customers!).
Natalie Truong
2020 will unmistakably be the year that no one – and certainly not marketers like me – planned for. The ink was barely dry on annual goals, budgets and work plans when our lives were upended by COVD-19. It was doubly difficult for me as I faced a new, exciting challenge of looking after 11 markets in Asia. Asia, as a region, was not only relatively new to me, but was also the first to be hit by the pandemic, throwing every proverbial spanner in the works. Budgets were tightened and events, along with marketing plans, had to undergo a virtual rebirth as clients’ and business priorities shifted as swiftly as the spread of the virus. But if there’s one lesson I took away, it was learning to be 1% braver every day – for my teams, for our business and for our clients.
The pandemic will continue to drive disruption of just about everything well into 2021. It won’t be the marketer with the best campaign idea who wins in 2021. It will be the marketer who has the courage to be 1% braver each day, to ask the tough questions, to challenge decisions made by the business, to get to know the other areas of the business as well as their own and to be the first to admit that you do not always have the answers. In this environment of sustained uncertainty, fortune favours the brave – so be bold, fearless, curious and lead the way – even if it’s just 1% braver every single day.
Bernice Muncaster
Director of Marketing & Communications, Australia
& New Zealand, DXC Technology
Bernice Muncaster
I think as the Australian B2B Marketing and Communications community moves into 2021 we should take significant learnings from 2020 with us. If this study and challenging year has taught CMO’s anything, it is that our success is driven by our ability to align ourselves to the business and position the marketing function as trusted advisors and change agents. For some, this may mean making deliberate changes in the way they approach planning, prioritise efforts, work alongside the sales organisation, and embrace the business and growth objectives of the organisation. Marketing creates the differentiator for any B2B business, but we must stay committed to our objectives and continually demonstrate how we are driving genuine results.
Dave Nicholls
2020 – WOW what a year. If there has ever been a catalyst to change… a global pandemic is certainly it. What we have seen in 2020 has been an extended period of trial of new ways of working, interactions with our customers and interactions internally. Marketers have stepped up and proven that a blend of surprising moments of physical interactions with the digital experience – the Phygital experience – can really make a difference to revenue generation. 2020 for me has been the mass trial of the Phygital experience and we must all learn from this and embrace the learnings and be ready to adapt again as it has yet to be seen what, if anything will fundamentally change in our lives longer term.
Brand for the second year has grown in importance and if you are not investing in the brand and the core values then you are missing out. The need for brand basics in the B2B space has never been stronger. Interestingly the divide between sales and marketing continues to be a challenge so I think that the biggest challenge for a B2B marketer will be – how do you improve the communication and brand journey internally? The two big 2021 questions for me are: 1) What is your internal nurture program? and 2) How are you building your brand internally and externally?