“Markets always change faster than marketing.” Today, more than ever, markets change and develop rapidly. Philip Kotler reminds us that marketers strive to keep up with the pace, as dictated by the markets.

COVID-19 global pandemic has upheaved life of the populace. Marketing is at the face when it comes to uncertainty across all business organisations. Consumer buying behaviour and consumption have made radical changes in a very short span of time, and many marketers predicts that at least some of those behaviours will stick around. It’s important that we recognise the changed marketing landscape and redefine marketing strategies considering the new normal. Today consumers are re-evaluating existing brand relationships. Some of the new habits will become the new normal even after the crisis passes. It is time for brands to focus on instilling confidence in customers. In order to be relevant it is necessary that communication in all channels are authentic, credible and positive. Being empathetic and prioritizing customer experience may help brand stand out. Marketer need to be agile in crafting solutions to relaunching their brands. Marketing is a blend of art and science. Now it is critical to ensure right marketing analysis through a disciplined approach combining marketing intelligence and marketing research. The trust-building process goes hand in hand with both customer acquisition and retention. Marketing, advertising and public relation have traditionally been tasked with trust-building and improving the customer experience.

However, today’s customers no longer solely depend on those mass-communications to get information and form opinions about a brand. Companies must dig deeper and examine every interaction. Positive customer experiences through trust-building can strengthen both customer relationships and retention. Now that we are living in a multichannel digital age, companies are discovering that consumers are more in control of how they want to communicate with different brand. Consumers have now added a new attribute to all categories- hygiene safety. For any business that has a physical interaction with the consumer, hygiene has assumed a new meaning and moved up in the attribute hierarchy. Some business may not be able to return to the way things were, and we don’t know what the future holds. Marketer need to explore new horizons. Now is the time to adopt smarter marketing strategies that will allow marketer to do more with less!