In our 2023 Global Marketing Trends report, we explore what investments marketing teams are making to become more resilient in the face of economic uncertainty. In part one of this four-part series, our Deloitte Digital leaders share practical steps marketers can take in response to this global marketing trend.

1. Employ more human-centered design

“In uncertain times, people want to feel seen and heard. Optimizing your existing technology infrastructure to be human-centered and inclusive deepens loyalty and retention. Responsive technology takes human needs and cultural insights into account.”
    – Stacy Kemp, principal and Ethos leader, Deloitte Digital

Take action

Review the technology stack that underpins your customer journey and look for places of friction where you are losing or confusing your customers. Then chart a roadmap to update and optimize those touch points by incorporating human-centered design principles to create a more satisfying and inclusive customer journey. 
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Explore how our practice can help you identify and correct for user experience challenges that are leaving some of your most valuable prospective customers out in the cold.

2. Harness data to improve margins amidst changing market conditions

“When inflation and recession concerns loom, every dollar matters. The right data and analytics can identify the places where your organization is leaking margin dollars. AI-enabled insight tools can help you plug those leaks, optimize pricing, grow margin, and align assortment with your supply chain through dynamic and responsive adjustments across your business.”
    – Georg Müller, managing director and Pricing, Promotion, and Commercial Spend leader, Deloitte Digital

Take action

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Survey your value chain to learn where your key customer data and insights are getting siloed and blinding you to potential challenges and opportunities that make your existing product cycles less profitable. Invest in a data orchestration layer to identify and analyze the weak spots in your pricing and cost structure, helping you respond more quickly to the next economic change.

Explore some actionable ways to optimize vendor agreements to find cost savings and avoid price hikes during changing economic conditions with this Wall Street Journal CMO Today story co-authored by Georg Müller.

Explore how connected data drives transformation and impacts your profitability with our Signal Loss insight series.

3. Get more personal with customers

“Personalized marketing journeys used to be a hallmark of direct-to-consumer products companies that were the first to recognize the advantages of fine-tuning marketing campaigns and messages to speak to individual customers. Now the opportunity offered by personalization is increasingly impacting more traditionally analog businesses, from B2B services firms to energy, resource, and industrial products companies. As customers become accustomed to being known and treated as individuals in their daily electronic browsing and shopping habits, those expectations have begun driving their professional services expectations as well.”
    – Leala Shah Crawford, managing director and Experience Management leader, Deloitte Digital

Take Action

Deepen your understanding of each customer segment you serve. Then look for opportunities to customize your messaging, delivery channels, and service mechanics to incorporate personalized insights based on past customer behavior and present geographic and market conditions. 
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This will not only increase the penetration and efficiency of your marketing campaigns, it will also drive improved loyalty, decreasing your cost of sale and mitigating against churn due to inflationary pressures and volatile supply chain challenges.

Learn how the right Personalization tools can deepen loyalty and trust with your customers, regardless of your industry or offering.

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