2020 Marketing Round Up
I can honestly say in the 10+ years I’ve been publishing annual Christmas marketing round ups, I’ve never had such a strange one to write. As I sit here and cast my mind back over the last twelve months, I can barely believe it has all happened.
Back at the start of the year, it was business as usual for us in the world of marketing recruitment. There was a thing called COVID in Asia that we were aware of, but no one really thought it would affect us here. The marketing jobs market was buoyant, and things were ticking along well.
By the end of March however, it was a different story. It felt like everything ground to a halt, not just marketing recruitment. Wonderfully, all our pipelined candidates who were hired just before lockdown were onboarded remotely and we were delighted to be able to support our clients through this new process.
TO FURLOUGH OR NOT TO FURLOUGH?
As we headed into April, attention turned to managing the workforce’s transition to working from home and whether to furlough staff. Statistics from the CIM’s COVID survey suggested that in total 17% of the marketing workforce were furloughed over lockdown, with large variations dependent on sector. Our own data indicates only 15% of those in tech marketing were furloughed, whereas marketing that involved a face-to-face service product such as holidays, events or ticketing saw furlough levels of nearly 90%.
Unsurprisingly over the next two months, the volumes of marketing jobs dropped significantly, with marketing recruitment freezes in place unless it was an essential hire. It was here that the impact of marketing redundancies really began to show as we saw an increase in applications of 400% for those few jobs that were progressing. We also saw the “time to hire” double and an extremely cautious sign off process as decisions were double and triple checked.
LOCKDOWN EASING
As lockdown eased in the summer, people started to breathe. Companies re-adjusted their budgets and realised they had not been hit as hard as expected. During this time, we saw a significant number of restructures as businesses realised their existing marketing skill sets needed adjustment to meet the demands of our new reality.
The adoption of digital marketing has increased exponentially across several sectors, particularly when it comes to lead generation and customer communications. Technology has been a specific example of this as physical events, which previously formed a crucial part of their lead generation strategy have been put on indefinite hold.
Working from home has by now become the new norm; only 54% of adults travelled to work in the last week of November, whilst 30% are exclusively working from home. It is impossible to downplay this huge culture shift in the way that we work. Those businesses previously resistant to adopting remote working practices have now seen the potential that this can offer. As a result, we have seen recruitment strategies being changed to implement policies offering a combination of remote working and office attendance for their staff. This has caused the marketing talent pool to open drastically as location becomes less of a factor when recruiting new members of the marketing team.
LOCK DOWN NO. 2
The start of Q4 has showed the marketing jobs market coming back to a healthier level. Job applications have reduced as most of those early redundancies have found new opportunities, and businesses start to plan for 2021 growth.
Fortunately, the second lockdown during December has had less of an impact than the first for marketing. Whilst the latest ONS data shows employment levels continuing to decrease (albeit at a slower rate than at the start of the pandemic), we have not seen the impacts reflected to the same degree across the different marketing disciplines. Pay growth is subdued across the entire economy and is reflected in marketing too; the CIM’s survey indicated 20% of marketing professionals have taken a pay cut, and very few expect to receive any type of bonus this year.
TAKING THE POSITIVES FOR MARKETING
However, it is not all doom and gloom; there have been some amazing changes driven by these extreme circumstances, that would otherwise have taken years, if not decades to achieve the same levels of adoption. Digital marketing has seen an unprecedented acceleration which would have taken many industries years to achieve and will reap future benefits in their lead generation and communication strategies.
We have also seen a greater focus on customer retention; some businesses chose to close all new business acquisition activities and dedicate their time and resources to supporting and serving their existing customers. This approach has been complemented by implementation improvements in account-based marketing that companies have previously been struggling to achieve.
I believe one of the biggest positives to come out of all this is the flexibility and agility that companies have found in forging their way through. Whilst exclusively working from home takes its toll mentally and many have suffered, once we come out of the other side; a more flexible combined office and home approach to working in the long term will improve our work life balance and ultimately have positive impacts on our mental well-being.
In most cases, businesses have a new appreciation and gratitude for the support that Marketing can provide when times get tough. We are have worked hard to be here, but some industries have not as been as lucky and for an unlucky few it was nothing to do with lack of effort but rather the turn of events that have changed the world.
I wish you and your team all the best for the festive season and hope to speak to you at some point in the future and say, “thank goodness 2020 is done and 2021 has been a better year for us both personally and professionally”.
more INSIGHT AND ADVICE FOR MARKETING RECRUITMENT
