News

By Kevin Tromp, Board Advisor, and Anthony Bennett, Managing Partner

Publications from across the global marketing spectrum have flooded us with offers of help and guidance. Everyone seems to have an educated opinion on how the COVID-19 crisis is going to impact businesses, customers, and the very existence of business categories. Predictions of the “new normal’ have become the norm. I find myself wondering how these prognosticators can all have so firmly read the future and identified a path forward at a time when the landscape looks so  dizzyingly fluid and unstable. 

From our perspective, it’s never been as dangerous as it is now to take opinions and guidance from so-called “sages.” And it’s never been so crucial to go back to basics and review your particular customer landscape with fresh eyes and an informed, market-based underpinning. 

We don’t know whether the conditions we see now will be the same conditions we face in six months, or a year or two. Right now, it’s too important to guess about the future. But we all need to make some critical decisions and position our businesses now —  fast, firmly (and yet flexibly) to play the market as it moves. 

Waiting is not an option for most of us. And since none of us can predict the future, we need to return to the core and make sure that we understand the core: our consumers, our competitors, our category, our channels — and, of course, the broad context. 

There seems to be no question that the customer journey is changing, and will continue to change, no matter the category. Even before COVID-19, many customer journeys were shifting, but now, the change may be dramatic. This change may be mandated, defensive, structural, or a true redefinition of need-state and value system driven by the impact and trauma of the pandemic. But it’s hard to read at face value — and in truth, supposition is limited and dangerous. 

It’s essential that before we reorient and refocus our employees, invest in communication, or change our distribution and delivery pathways that the implications and opportunities resulting from altered customer journeys are certain. (This has been hard enough for all of us without needlessly wasting resources.) Investment in a focused and action-oriented exploration across a relevant target group sample will yield dividends through reestablishing relevant customer engagement foundations at a time when firmness and stability are  rare commodities.

At RedSky Strategy, we place the human experience at the center of everything we do to help marketers find factual foundation points amid the ambiguity, and anchor the actions that need to be taken in the real world. We’ve developed a number of innovative and insightful tools that we overlay on the current market context. This allows for sophisticated analysis and the crafting of tailored go-to-market actions. However, information without action is just theory. Our practical approach ensures cost-effective and actionable information that helps the company adapt to meet the dynamic customer needs resulting from our extremely fluid landscape and changing customer journeys. 

Right now, no one has all the answers, but we have the right questions to ask of consumers, marketers, and executives — and we know how to listen and respond accordingly. This orientation is what will separate the thriving from barely and almost-surviving companies over the coming months and years.