One skill that will dominate marketing in future.

Read time: 3 minutes

I will not jump the bus in talking about the skill that will dominate marketing in future.

As the skill I will tell you needs to be developed & you need to understand how to develop the skill.

Marketing has seen a dramatic shift in the last 10 years thanks to hyperconnectivity.

Over the last few years, the mode of distribution has gone decentralised.

There was a time when there were only a handful of ways to communicate with the masses. Limited TV channels, limited mass newspapers, limited outdoor companies

This is totally disrupted now. Today anyone can be a publisher thanks to social media.

The other change that has happened over last decade in marketing is- what competes for attention has changed dramatically.

People’s dopamine threshold has shot up many times.

People are constantly looking for fresh content with a flavour of entertainment. Because of this, it has become harder to build brands these days because a brand needs to have more bull eyes in order for brands to start getting recognized.

Today brands need to be consistently good with their messaging for a considerable period of time.

Even if you come up with a single viral campaign for your brand. That may not be enough.

Consistency will still be needed in order to sustain.

For example, many people love what Zomato does with their marketing.

Zomato did not occupy that mind space with people because of 1 or 2 campaigns. They did it because they were consistent.

The most interesting part about Zomato is, that people relate the brand with different emotions.

Some feel they are great with minimalist content while others may feel they are great with memes. You may also relate Zomato with Nostalgia. While others may believe that they are great with topical marketing.

And let’s not overcomplicate this.

Zomato has been taking more shots with its stand and marketing consistently.

They have been minimalistic consistently

They have been nostalgic consistently

They have been topical consistently

Hence Zomato has picked up a brand style and they have been consistent about it.

Fundamentals of brand building have not changed, medium and approach have seen a shift.

This also helps Zomato to have a broad play area. Hence that brings me to the next point here- Refresh rate.

It is critical that brands today keep hitting refresh with their content while staying within the boundaries of brand style.

Anything that is refreshing on social media, connects with the audience, a relevant example- Durex.

They have a very refreshing stand on social which is not seen by other brands.

1000s of video ads are made in a year in India. People don’t even remember 2% of these ads. Hence engagement becomes another important factor.

If your video can get someone to like, comment or drive any kind of engagement it is a good start. The algorithm will do the job of pushing the content more.

But the bull’s eye is ‘Share‘.

When someone shares your content- that’s a win for the brand.

Why?

Why do people share content in the first place?

Why do YOU share a piece of content?

Before clicking on the share button, you build a catalogue of things you have built on your social profile, so what you are really doing is- you are building your own brand when you share.

Sharing content is actually not so much about the content, it’s about- who you are.

The internet is a bizarre place, we share relatable content in order to stand out.

Here are some kinds of content that people tend to share-

Topical, Hyperposisitvity, Nostalgia, extreme/counter opinions, identity-based stuff (for example, 5 things only Gujrati’s will understand).

The other thing people love and connect with is incongruence. This means people expect X to happen in your content but Y happens. Beating the expectations of the audience always helps.

For example, you expect Rahul Dravid to be a quiet and shy guy for all the right reasons but he comes to you in the form of- Indira Nagar ka Gunda in an ad.

And finally, how fast and adaptable is your feedback loop?

The more shots you take, the more feedback you will get. The more feedback you get, the better you will become at marketing your product or service.

This brings me to the skill that will out-beat any other skill in marketing in future- is the skill of creating content, iterating it and growing your audience.

If you are a creator yourself, the doors will open for you that you would never imagined.

The future of marketing is creators.

You don’t need to think of yourself as a creator only if you have millions of followers. If you have a tribe of people who engage with your content and share it at a high rate, you are already a creator.

The reason is simple, you know what it takes to grow in today’s world at lean or no budgets. Which makes you a grand candidate for a marketing role. From executive to CMO level.

And I mean it, I have got job opportunities because of being a creator myself, I have hired people looking at their content creation zeal and consistency. And similar is the case with my fellow creators in this category.

So if you are working somewhere or even if you are a student, start your content creation journey and take enough shots. It will take time, it will need you to be patient, it will be difficult but you will reap the rewards of it.

That’s it for today, folks!

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Cheers,

Apurv