Uncertain times: Leveraging marketing to engage customers and drive value

“We’ve learned from the pandemic that it’s really important to invest in the drivers of revenue and growth,” Balis said in an interview with Cheddar News.

Balis said a lot of companies underinvested during the last recession and struggled to come back from it.

“It was incredibly expensive for them to win those customers back,” she said. “It’s much easier to keep the customers you have than try to buy them back later.”

As some companies start to make cuts, such as with advertising spend, Balis said there is an opportunity to stand out in the market.

“As people exit during the economic downturn, there are going to be a lot of opportunities to buy media and market more effectively than ever before,” she said.

Kellogg’s Chief Marketing Officer Charisse Hughes agreed with Balis about investing in marketing now.

“We, as Janet said, believe that advertising impact increases during a recession because there’s less noise in the marketplace,” Hughes said. “We would hate to cede our brands to our competitors, so we’re doubling down on investing with our brands. This is the perfect time for us to continue to win share.”

Companies can drive long-term value when they responsibly manage and use data to personalize their products for consumers.

When customers opt in to share their data – data they’re comfortable sharing – they can tell brands and retailers what data they want to share and how they want it used.

“Trust and transparency in that data collection and how it’s used is paramount to build that consumer confidence,” he said.

Moore shared a personal example of how hyper-personalization worked in a recent interaction his family had with a brand.

“My son was training for a large event … [and] he had an equipment malfunction,” Moore said. “I sent a picture to the manufacturer. They overnighted the equipment to us and attached a note that said, ‘Best of luck on your upcoming competition.’ I didn’t tell them about the competition, but they knew through data that they had, the sports niche company, on the upcoming competitions and my son, who was registered to compete. That generated a lot of brand affinity for my son and myself and will probably result in a lifetime value increase for them.”