6 Lessons Marketers Learned in 2020

By Chuck Leddy

In the first two months of 2020, we all followed news about the devastating outbreaks of COVID-19 in China and Italy. In March, the pandemic hit the U.S. with full impact, forcing the closure of businesses, the cancellation of events, and making nearly everyone work (and do almost everything else) from home via digital channels.

The “new normal” of 2020 meant staying home, Zoom meetings, widespread social justice movements in the streets of every major city, as well as fervor for political changes at every level of government. Brands were also pulled into these social tumults, being forced to take sides and define their values. As we look back, what were the key lessons and trends 2020 brought for marketing? 

1. Digital transformation accelerated.

As both organizations and individuals shifted to doing everything from home via digital tools, organizations that had invested in digital transformation pre-pandemic outperform their more flat-footed rivals. Scaling up digital ways of working became urgent for marketing teams, as did scaling up digital customer engagement, as live events and bricks-and-mortar were closed down.

2. Brand strategy and messaging must be “change-ready.”

The month of March 2020 felt like a year, largely because organizations and individuals were suddenly forced to pivot to new ways of working, living, learning, and doing everything. Brand strategies and content plans that were fine in February became completely inappropriate in March (the phrase used to describe flat-footed brands in March was “tone-deaf”). Many savvy brands simply pressed the “pause” button and adapted their marketing strategy for the “new normal” of March and beyond. 

3. Adapting to remote work takes both new technological capabilities and new skill sets

What 2020 highlighted most of all was the need for “change-readiness” or agility at both the organizational and individual level. Marketers had to learn how to work well and collaborate remotely, from home, while marketing leaders had to learn new ways of leading and motivating teams in a context where “face-to-face check-ins” were no longer feasible. 

4. Virtual events will remain, but won’t replace live events.

The year 2020 has shown that virtual engagement such as Zoom meetings and online events are great, but can’t replicate the emotional resonance and connective power of in-person communication. While virtual events are cheaper, save travel expense, and promote convenience, the power of face-to-face human interaction has been hard-wired into our human brains for millenia. We’ll continue to use virtual technologies, but 2020 has taught us the unreplaceable power of face-to-face communication. 

5. Wellness is imperative to support productivity.

Stress and mental health concerns have been a constant part of the COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on all of us. During 2020, organizations have increasingly prioritized employee wellness as a foundation for productivity. Companies have been more flexible with work schedules, have offered virtual wellness events so employees can socialize and unwind.

6 Agility and flexibility remain paramount

Constant change was the watchword for 2020. Marketers must be adaptable, whether to new ways of working, new marketing technologies like AI, or to shifting customer behaviors. Change-readiness is a muscle that we all need to flex, and it needs to be baked into our mindsets, our tech stacks, and our marketing strategies from here on. 

Download here

Check out Boston Content’s 2021 Content Marketing Playbook for more insights on where content marketing is going in 2021.

About the Author:

Chuck Leddy

B2B Brand Storyteller

Wrap-Up of "2021: A Marketing Mystery?"

By Chuck Leddy

Boston Content Group Executive Director Sarah Dudley, in her role as host, explored what 2020 had brought to the realm of marketing and what might be in store for marketing in 2021. During the free, on-demand event, change and the need to remain flexible were identified as keys to success. Dudley’s two guests were Theodora Berenson, Director of Content Development and Marketing at CBS Boston, and Dan Shure, SEO consultant and co-founder of Evolving SEO. Dudley began the conversation by noting that “2020 has prepared us to expect anything,” from global pandemics to social justice tumults to remote work and learning.

Major Changes 2020 Witnessed

Berenson noted that the content she focuses on developing at CBS Boston relates mostly to sports and lifestyle trends (and the lifestyle brand partnerships CBS Boston has forged). “Well, sports just didn’t exist for a while in 2020, which made it challenging to develop content in that vacuum.” Lifestyle content also had to change in order to adapt to the “new normal” of people wearing masks and social distancing, making video content production problematic.

For Shure and his SEO work, “my clients switched their content to reflect pandemic realities like food delivery instead of eating in restaurants.” As he noted, the pandemic “changed nearly everything about content in 2020 -- it needed to be COVID-friendly” in order to be relevant for consumers and SEO purposes alike. As people changed how they lived, Google’s approach to SEO also changed. Topics that were relevant pre-pandemic became suddenly less relevant (cruise ships, anyone?), and vice versa (“best sourdough recipes” was a booming topic after March).

Approaches to Content Creation in 2020

Berenson said that nobody could have planned relevant content for what 2020 had in store. The idea that you can predict everything that will happen in a year is “just hilarious,” she said. “I’d like to sound more scientific, but a ;ot of what we did in 2020 revolved around experimentation -- throwing things against the wall and seeing what would stick. There’s no algorithm for content development, especially in 2020, so you have to be ready to keep testing and learning.” Of course, you “need to start with a basic understanding of your audience and what they want, but the tactics of how to engage them are always going to change,” she said.

For Shure, he advocated “creating content the way a comedian does.” He noted that comedians draft their jokes, then refine them over many performances based on audience feedback (i.e., laughter or silence). “Most of the benefits I provide to my clients come from refining content this same way over time, based on feedback from the audience for the content.” Most important for Shure is using SEO for content planning and topic selection. “SEO works best when it’s considered from the planning process onward,” not as an afterthought.

Content Creation Advice for 2021

Berenson develops a lot of video content, and she advises content creators to consider various storylines and generate content in ways that allow for versatility in light of different content formats and platforms. “Think strategically about all the angles you might cover in a piece of content,” she says. “By planning ahead, you can ensure that you’ll have different storylines available.” Dudley noted that such “versatile” content assets are especially useful when times change and it becomes harder to shoot “net new” content. At IBM, where Dudley works, “we’ve learned to be creative with existing assets, repurposing what we have instead of producing net new content.”

Shure advises content creators to “start using Google Discover as a way to see what’s trending” and generate ideas.He said that Discover has enabled his clients to take advantage of trends and see what content topics are most ripe for tackling by brands looking to differentiate and get attention in a landscape flooded with “me-too” content. 

Watch the full event (32 minutes) on-demand now:

div class="jsBrightTALKEmbedWrapper" style="width:100%; height:100%; position:relative;background: #ffffff;">

About the Author:

Chuck Leddy

B2B Brand Storyteller