Marketing executives: bright spots among many burnouts
Nearly 70 percent of marketing executives worldwide say the past year has left their employees drained, according to a new study from Accenture. That's no surprise, as companies around the world are seeing more and more cases of employee burnout. But there are bright spots.
A study by Accenture Interactive entitled "The Great Marketing Declutter" demonstrates how certain marketing organizations are outperforming their competitors in terms of revenue growth, profitability and customer satisfaction. These marketing leaders - just 17 percent of more than 1,000 respondents - and their departments are doing well, despite all the changes, uncertainties and complexities of the past 18 months. This group, called "Thrivers" in the study, notes: the vast majority (86 percent) of their employees are even motivated by the task of adapting to their customers' rapidly changing buying motivations.
What makes successful marketing leaders
According to the Accenture study, thrivers stand out because they are decluttering their marketing to cope with increasing complexity. Fifty-nine percent of them said their organization is in a much stronger position today than it was a year ago because it has been forced to look at marketing in a completely different way. Successful companies recognize that their customers' motivations have changed. And they know what it takes to provide them with smarter and better offerings. They've focused on the essentials, weeded out anything unimportant, and recombined the rest. The result: teams find more meaning in their work. That's critical when it comes to supporting their own business and customers, as well as attracting and retaining employees.
"Striver" as a counterpart
The study divides the remaining respondents into two further categories related to specific aspects of their customer relationships. Two-thirds (66 percent) of the marketing executives surveyed are "Strivers": they have some autonomy in meeting customer needs, but limited knowledge of how customers are changing. The remaining 17 percent are "survivors." They are burned out and don't have their finger on the pulse of customer change because they assume that change is temporary.
"Marketing leaders who make it their mission to redefine their function, how they work and the role of marketing in the organization as a whole will be more successful and grow your business in the future," said Benjamin Tück, Lead Accenture Interactive Switzerland. "Thrivers will find their purpose in addressing the real needs of their customers while aligning their organization in an agile and data-driven way."
Thrivers are much more powerful than Survivor. They achieve ...
- more than 1.4 x more frequently a far better performance in sales growth and profitability.
- more than 1.8 x more frequently a far better performance in customer satisfaction.
- more than 2 x more frequently a far better performance in Customer Lifetime Value.
- more than 2.5 x more frequently a far better performance in customer awareness.
The strategies of successful marketing leaders
The study also found that Thrivers align their marketing organization around three key guiding principles: Alignment with [company] Purpose, Support for Customers, and Optimized Way of Working. Thrivers are pointing the way to the future with their thinking and actions. Their strategy can be defined by the following five guiding principles:
- Getting to know customers anew: Thrivers accept that the customers they once knew have changed. They've jettisoned their old beliefs about their customers' preferences and understand the danger of making mere assumptions. They listen, align their marketing with who their customers are at any given time, and make customer satisfaction their primary measure of success.
- Find differentiator: Thrivers know that a differentiating customer experience requires internal unity and collaboration. That's why they are 60 percent more likely than Survivors to say that customer input is very important to them in making key business decisions in this area. They recognize that all functions - product development, commerce, sales, service and marketing - must run in sync to stand out from the competition.
- Keeping pace with rapid change: The overwhelming majority of Thrivers (91 percent) believe that customer behavior is changing faster than ever. That's why they strive to deliver messages, content and experiences that are relevant to customers in the moment. They are also 50 percent more likely than Survivors to increase their investments to scale appropriately quickly (95 percent vs. 65 percent).
- Figure out what better NOT to do: The marketing ecosystem has become exponentially more complex due to the explosion of touchpoints, technologies, legal issues, and partners. Thrivers are mastering this complexity by automating and industrializing their processes. They also invest in better collaboration with ecosystem partners significantly more often than Survivor (91 percent vs. 56 percent). They are just as careful to discard superfluous tasks as to complete necessary ones. This gives their marketing organizations the decisive edge.
- Standing up for your own values: Thrivers have their own brand purpose, approach customers empathetically and authentically, and provide what they value. Thrivers are five times more likely than survivors to see pandemic changes in customer attitudes as an opportunity to rethink the role of marketing and redefine their brand purpose.
Source: Accenture
