How do you feel about “The New Normal”?
Go ahead and just call it “The New Reality”.
Kevin Coupe, business author, Prime Storyteller, author of Newsbeat.com, and keynote speaker at the NAED Adventure Conference, asked attendees when they think things will return to “normal”. He suggests a reason why it is probably never.
“We don’t even know what normal is anymore,” Coupe told attendees.
But, he believes that’s a good thing, because now we are not thinking of ourselves as innovators, especially in marketing. “Think about it as survival,’ Coupe explained. “We don’t do committees, think about a strategy for 6 months, and then test it. We just do it. When we think too much about these things, we get in our own way.”
A key to that, and how it relates to your marketing, is to focus on not the question of if you can accomplish a significant change, just taking an action to see if it works.
“Does anybody know how the next two years are going to go?” Coupe asked. “You have to plan for what can happen, not what will happen. You do that by thinking of yourself as essential, and how are we going to remain essential.” Coupe added your business is going to be different than it is right now, and a big part of that will include getting closer to your customers through marketing.
But Coupe adds that you have to define your “essential” to your customers, and know how your customers define you as essential to improve your marketing and communication with them. He recommends highlighting what you are doing today that only you can do, and how you are selling what sets you apart.
“Compete is a verb. It requires action and it requires marketing strategy,” Coupe told the audience.