DECONSTRUCTING MARKETING IN TODAY’S TIME

“Marketing” a Multidisciplinary Science

Marketing is most commonly defined as a function to understand needs and wants of consumer to build sustainable competitive advantage for your brands/ products and companies.

While the core principles of marketing haven’t changed but last decade has seen marketing transforming into a techno digital world where decisions are supported by think-tanks (machines) and agility in decision making comes from computational power of machines to drive real-time decision making.

Marketers mostly designed their initiatives (4Ps & 4Cs) to be “Consumer-centric” but companies with diverse talent pool in their marketing function have grown faster in customer acquisition, retention and driving ROI of their marketing investment. We may say that Data Science and technology are driving all the innovations in marketing but the inclusion of new skill sets like Economists, Psychologist, Sociologist, Mathematicians, Statisticians, Technologist and the Change management professionals have given new wings to marketing to flourish in this fiercely competitive and consumer centric world.

With the advancement in technology and evolving customer behaviour, It seems very evident that CMO teams should now be composed of diverse skillsets to ensure all the strategic decisions are well-informed. Inclusion of multi-disciplinary talent in marketing team enables 360 degree perspective of actions required to drive core marketing KPIs- Brand measures, consumer affinity & engagement, customer- acquisition, retention & loyalty, and driving ROI of their marketing investment.

This agile ecosystem is the way forward to drive strong marketing transformation where every piece of communication is addressable and rooted in customer reality and every penny spent on marketing is measurable towards brand or business gains.

If you are wondering how these functions strengthen the marketing team then here’s a detailed flow of value adds thru interdisciplinary teams within marketing function

1. Marketing & Economics: To determine the environmental conditions and their effect in buyer behaviour. Establish Demand and Needs, Price and Income, Impact of Micro & Macro- economic parameters on the category growth and market potential.
2. Marketing & Sociology: Analyse sociological determinants to establish the buyer consumption behaviour and patterns. Estimate higher associated value of possession as promoted by culture and value system or a deterrent or a taboo if possessed.
3. Marketing & Psychology: Know your consumers. Determinants of consumer behaviour and reaction to stimuli, or patterns and changes in the system. Shift from group dynamics to individual reactivity to curate personalised strategy at scale.
4. Marketing & Customer Management: Customer relationship management, Omni-channel marketing, Targeted content curation, Contact Optimisation- of right content- to right consumer- using right channel at right time.
5. Marketing & Mathematics-Statistics: Harness the power of Big Data, from different sources, with the mathematical constructs, statistical tests, build an ever test and learn environment- Design of experiments, Algorithmic solutions to build automated machine learning solutions for higher efficiency and processes that can be Artificial Intelligence lead innovations.

Change is the only constant

Every business is transforming albeit change of transformation varies a lot across companies. Marketers with diverse skills are thriving in this changing time by taking pole position to drive innovations.

Early adopters with agile structures will stay ahead of others and lead by example in this transformative time.

Does your Marketing have all the Multidisciplinary skills to brew the winning strategy?