Change is constant so what's the key to staying ahead of the next change?

We’re in a funny place at the moment.

We’re told consumer behaviour has changed but key insights still remain true. Many of us embraced the change to working from home – many weeks ago - but now yearn for a coffee meeting, the social chat in the office corridor or a team standup where you actually stand up!

Change is constant so what’s the key to staying ahead of the next change?

A mindset that is always learning, listening intently when bright people speak and developing your professional agility seem to be universal approaches to staying ahead adopted by marketing leaders. I was lucky enough to be in a (virtual) room of bright people as host of the ADMA CMO Lunch and Learn in August - so I listened intently.

Key to the discussion, and no matter what change is coming – whole organisation business transformation, customer centricity initiatives, regulatory changes, even the changes from lockdown – in all instances, it is the skills you have, or be willing to develop, that will allow you to navigate and thrive in this ever-changing future.

Like any navigation task, knowing where you are now is essential to the journey and the path to future state. To assist the industry, ADMA gained industry input into a marketing skills and capability framework – covering skills across the end-to-end marketing function – so marketing leaders can understand the strengths and development needs for their teams. And that’s true no matter if you’re just aligning your team to the strategic marketing plan or need the team to be part of a business transformation.

Susan Coghill, Chief Marketing Officer, Tourism Australia, spoke of their journey from a global to local focus and how her team balances the personalisation that customers expect with emotive brand stories. The just released Tourism Australia campaign shows how they found that balance in spades (link to favourite advert)

The Iconic’s CMO, Alexander Meyer, discussed how as a pure play online retailer, this period of change was more about the market changing around their brand and their need to focus on the top of the funnel and hire appropriately.

Working with many marketing teams, David Morgan, Principal, MacMORGAN Next Practice Growth, shared how good processes and tools help to shape great teams but the ability to pivot was vitally important.

Finally, speaking for the snapshot data of marketers and marketing teams using ADMA’s new marketing skills assessment tool, Lionel Kho, VP Data Transformation, Merkle spoke of a lack of experience in data science and analytics, ecommerce, programmatic, PR and shopper marketing. The data also pointed to the importance of upskilling in areas such as journey mapping, marketing technology, digital and data platforms, personalisation, omni-channel, customer lifecycle, customer feedback and experimentation.

The session delved into marketing skills and the many factors to consider in the learning and development plans for the team – and even for the CMO as the marketing leader. Knowing where each team member rates in terms of skills for today and tomorrow starts with a tool like the ADMA marketing skills assessment so you get to determine development plans and team structures that will deliver your marketing plan. If you missed the session, you can watch on-demand here.