Top 3 marketing investments for 2021
Growth, Content marketing, and Design are the top 3 trends according to The Executive Marketing Leadership Survey by Hubspot and Canva
My startup experience made me more independent, gutsy, and arrogant. I was the decision-maker and would always make sure things happened my way. This meant I suffocated others especially my co-founder. Looking back I think one needs to be secured and let others play their role for a startup to grow. That’s when a team flourishes.
Not all my decisions were bad. When we started making decent money, we decided to take a complete break in the last two weeks of December. It wasn’t easy at the beginning. The world won’t go mad if you are not publishing for two weeks. Things would be the same when we would be back in the first week of January.
This habit continued after closing down the startup. Last year I took an entire month off and was roaming around in Leh, Himachal, and Amritsar. This year has almost been a vacation captivated in my house doing things I love - eating, watching content, sleeping, and running. So I don’t think I need a break.
Indians have milked watching content this year due to the pandemic. People in India are now watching online video content for an average of five hours sixteen minutes per day compared to the global average of four hours and three minutes per day.
"People in India watch by far the most online video at an average of five hours and 16 minutes per day, the largest percentage (7.1 percent) who watch more than 12 hours per day," according to the report titled "How Video is Changing the World" by Limelight Networks.
And in 2020 Over-The-Top streaming (OTT) has taken the piece from Cinema.
According to findings from the Media and Entertainment Outlook 2020, India is currently the world’s fastest-growing OTT market and is all set to emerge as the world’s sixth-largest by 2024. The market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 28.6% over the next four years to touch revenues of $2.9 billion.
“The massive investments made by OTT services like Netflix, Amazon, Disney+ Hotstar and others in originals as well as acquired content will help subscription video-on-demand make up 93% of the total OTT revenue (as compared to 87% globally), increasing at a CAGR of 30.7% between 2019-2024, from $708 million in 2019 to $2.7 billion.”
So when Rajkumar Rao said at the Actors Roundtable 2020 that last 7-8 months he has watched content, I felt relief. Just that he is right now one of India’s finest actors who had two amazing releases this year - Chhalaang and Ludo. And I have hardly worked in 2020.
Anyways, Rajeev Masand thinks Raj was brilliant in Ludo.
For the last few years, I make a point to see the year-end roundtable of actors, actresses, and directors. It is my love for content. And trust me seeing the 7 actors in this year’s roundtable you can judge that content has really evolved in 2020. Definitely, the year was for OTT.
Watch the amazing conversation about cinema, improvisation, preparing for the role, and their favourite work in 2020. Also, find out the odd man in this roundtable online conversation.
Rajeev also did a roundtable with 8 leading actresses. What intrigued me was the vastly different conversations Rajeev had with the 8 leading ladies of Indian cinema. From Shabana Azmi to Tripti Dimri.
Very candidly Shabana Azmi appreciating young actresses for taking up women’s issues and Indian cinema has evolved. As a man, it was interesting to understand women’s point of view and the characters that they play. For me Tillotama Shome was fascinating and so was Rasika Dugal.
Content also plays a big role in marketing. However, the importance of content or the essence of content gets lost in the madness of the medium. So I was not vastly surprised when content marketing was highlighted as one of the top three marketing investments for 2021. But then with the rise of content that adds value to the life of consumers, maybe it is the time when marketers understand the importance of content marketing.
Hubspot surveyed over 500 marketing leaders and learned how they adjusted their investments in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, and how they are planning to succeed in the new year. Based on the results Investments in Growth Marketing, Content, and Design are the three major investments of 2021.
Growth Marketing is the most preferred. According to The Executive Marketing Leadership Survey by Hubspot and Canva: “Growth marketing has been a hot topic for several years now, but with online traffic growing during COVID-19, marketing leaders are focusing their efforts on converting traffic into leads, while maintaining traffic levels over time.”
“We also learned that email, Facebook, Instagram, and the Company Blog are the most important channels used by marketing leaders to hit their goals. This fits into both content marketing and design investments—using design and content to connect your brand to your audience, with email, Facebook, and Instagram as the main channels for distribution of that content.”
I have had my problems with the term Growth Marketer or Growth Hacker or Technical Marketer or Data-driven Marketer or Head of Growth or the new one Full Funnel Marketer.
I am not jealous because I don’t have such skills. By the way, what is the difference between a digital marketer and a growth marketer?
When it comes to the difference between marketer and growth marketer it is said that:
A marketer mainly focuses on the first two phases Awareness and Acquisition – How do I get more name recognition and more visitors on my website?
A growth hacker focuses on all phases of the Pirate funnel – Where is the biggest opportunity to grow our revenue?
Additionally, a growth hacker uses the entire funnel, runs experiments, is data-driven, has tech skills, and is also involved in products. Basically jack of too many skills but master of none. That’s why they are preferred by startups who have fewer resources and no budget to work.
With the economic recovery happening not before 2022, I see why marketers would prefer growth hackers. And this also means people like me who have just one skill will have a tough time. Even in the next few lifetimes, I can’t acquire all these skills.
However, I don’t understand if a marketer is not helping the company grow then what is she even doing?
The recent investments by Maggi into content marketing is worth noting. The website has been transformed into a wide section of Quick & Easy recipes.
Is it unique? No.
Considering that everyone turned into a chef during this lockdown the move is fine. In fact, the brand invested in YouTube videos last year while collaborating with chefs but after a while, it stopped.
The brand says that one can curate the list based on factors such as cuisine, diet and health, meal-type, ingredient, steps, and dish type.
Almost every brand in the food space has walked on this road and stopped after a while. You don’t get viral by 2 months’ initiatives. And that’s the reason why almost all content marketing exercises fail. Marketers don’t have patience and money.
But do you really think I will come to Maggi websites for recipes or rather will search for a specific dish on YouTube or just fire up Ranveer Brar’s YouTube/Instagram channel?
This is why thinking is important but we are far busy in execution. While I can write another article on how Maggi can innovate their content marketing game but I trust they have better digital strategists.
Meanwhile, to create engagement and support women to start their food business Maggi has launched “Apna Food Business”. It has partnered with the India Food Network (IFN), an online portal for easy cooking recipes, to launch the ‘Desh Ke Liye 2 Minute – Ek Chhoti Si Koshish’ campaign.
It’s too early for me to judge the campaign but I don’t understand why have a different portal. This is why I said we really don’t think.
Also so much for desh ke liye since jingoism is the preferred flavor.
The report further says found that 84% of marketing leaders believe that their web content management system (CMS) fosters good or excellent collaboration, and 71.32% of marketers surveyed find the usability of their graphic design software to be good or excellent.
Going forward marketers want to invest in marketing technology. The reasons lie in the challenges that marketers faced as the pandemic started. The survey answers highlighted this experience—63% of marketing leaders said COVID-19 has negatively impacted their teams’ productivity and responsiveness.
“The survey found that the biggest barriers to marketing team productivity include insufficient team resources (19%), team workload and burnout (17%), and constantly changing business strategies (11%) to respond to the global environment.”
Updating the website has become one of the most crucial jobs after the pandemic. The website which was hardly touched now has become more important than social media updates. Because of the decreasing trust in social media and growing concern for fake news. “47% of survey respondents said they have needed to update their website more regularly since the start of COVID-19.”
Updating a website directly connects with your content marketing. It also ties up with your backend related to speed, continuous optimization, design, and providing the consumer with a humane experience.
Hopefully, marketers look beyond data gathering exercise from a website.