From time to time, team members will share their views stimulated by content from an industry thought leader. Here, our CEO, Lisa Maier, discusses the recent CXL Institute article, “Marketing and Growth Lessons for Uncertain Times” by Derek Gleason.
So, I have a split brain and I want to share both perspectives.
First and foremost, we are a shared humanity across the globe and we are in a moment of crisis. Our top priority is to help ourselves, our families and loved ones, our employees and stakeholders, our clients and business partners to get through this. One of our clients received a surprisingly warm and heartfelt message from vendor in China yesterday, a message that is enormously heartening for all of us:
This awful situation will come to an end.
From the second perspective, many know that I am a business strategist and that my radar lights up when there is even the slightest indicator of an opportunity due to a possible market disruption. We are in one of those times now. For that reason, I am strongly counseling our clients and prospective clients to take active steps to first assist existing clients by modifying their products and services to meet their temporarily changed needs.
And then to not miss a beat, but to immediately shift their attention to consider the reality that while many businesses never see the opportunity for a major shift in market share outside of technological disruption, we are in a rare situation where market force disruptions may end with a dramatic shift in market share. In other words, the current winners may not come out on top. Now is the time to carefully consider what you can do to change your company’s future trajectory. It may be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
Today I saw an exceptional article that pulled together a number of case studies and data that showed how this could happen. What is beautiful – and we owe a real shout out to CXL Institute – is that they did all of the legwork of pulling it together. Thank you! So grab a cup of coffee or tea, sit down at a quiet time, and let the information in this article stimulate your thoughts. Topics include:
- How do actions during a crisis affect performance after the crisis, including an impressive comparison of performance differences during and after.
- Frameworks companies may take during a crisis (prevention-promotion).
- How to understand how your customers may change, during and even after the crisis.
- Advice on marketing tactics for new and changing market segments, based on psychological segmentation.
- Brand considerations: why your brand matters now more than ever.
- And finally, how to use this time productively.
All-in-all, timely and well thought out information from our friends at CXL. May this give you a rudder in these uncertain times. We’ll be alongside you, and look forward to meeting up under happier circumstances on the other side.
