After the longest and deepest economic downturn in history it feels like the good economic times are returning!

That was certainly the message from Deloittes and Trajectory who shared insight from their own research that shows how large businesses are all focused on growth, and are investing in both organic product development innovation as well as M&A to deliver that success.

But before we skip happily into the growing future, I wanted to share some of the personal lessons that the 6 years of economic downturn has taught me including:

1. Customers are your 2nd most important asset – if they value what you’re offering, they will stay with you through thick and thin. If they don’t, they won’t.  Accepting that customers’ problems and buying habits will change over time means that you have to stay close to them so that you can adapt your offerings and messaging to remain relevant.

2. People are your number one asset without question. If you really think about it, you realise that you don’t have very much without good people. Products don’t event themselves; self-service web experiences require people somewhere along the line. In my experience, everyone, even the most miserable people, would like to be part of something successful and do have the capacity for creativity, hard work and problem solving if they are given the chance. When the hard times come, if you continue to invest in training and education so that they increase their net worth, they may want to stay with you when things get better. If you have to make difficult decisions and let people go,  get expert input and communicate sensitively, as after all , ex employees could remain a very important resource for any organisation.

3. Digital is no longer separate – when the downturn started, digital was still separate, now it underpins and flows through our business. We all practice digital marketing, digital product development, digital sales, digital customer service. Indeed, digital is so blended with our tasks, that it has moved more and more into the background, enabling and supporting modern business and modern life. And the pace of technological innovation keeps accelerating.

4. Balance content consumption with creation – Oone area of growth throughout the downturn has been Content Marketing which is now the weapon of choice to gain attention. Today the amount of content created is overwhelming to the uninitiated, so a couple of lessons for me. On the consumption side, the key lesson is being clear with yourself how much time should be spent consuming vs creating content. On the consumption side,  you could spend your whole day watching best practice videos, reading white papers, and studying infographics just to keep up-to-date with the trends, but then where does the creation part come? These days I try to devote an hour per day consuming other people’s content, unless I’m researching a specific area. On the creation side, here the question is the balance between creating from scratch vs curating as there is so much content already out their that could be transformed and combined to create something very different.

5. The End of the Big Launch – the big unveiling still exists, but has been balanced with the process of continuous iteration; testing prototypes and messaging with real customers to reduce risk and being more open about the things that didn’t work. Angry Birds had 50 failed attempts before striking gold; Virgin got as many misses at hits. The real challenge is to ‘fail fast’, in other words, create some assumptions and put them to the test so that you can refine and improve as your knowledge grows. In other words, the kind of thinking that old school direct marketers have practiced for the last 25 years is now mainstream!

6. It all starts with an idea and no idea is new. Whilst innovation frameworks frame and guide the innovation process, and data and technology enable progress, the starting point with any innovation – whether product, content, customer experience, process – is an idea that has been inspired from something. I’ve learnt that great ideas for me often come outside of the workplace and from areas completely unrelated to my sector, so it’s good put ourselves in different environments that lead to sparks and connections that make us ‘uncomfortably excited’.

In truth, no idea is truly original and true breakthroughs are often the result of  copying, transforming and combining to create something new and different. Indeed many of the world’s greatest breakthroughs can be tracked back to this process and I want to leave you (below) with a thought-provoking video, Remix, which builds on this idea.

So there you have it. Wherever you look, everyone has been affected by the downturn and, in truth, most people are still reluctant to admit that we’re over the worst. Perhaps that’s why I haven’t changed the name of this blog for so long! However, it’s now time for me to move forward and rebrand this blog for the new growth era that we’re now part of.

I started this blog back in 2008 as a resource really to help me cope with a complete change in gear. None of us expected the downturn to last as long as it has, and though there have been some very gloomy periods, there have been some useful lessons and behaviour changes that will continue into the future.

Finally, from a marketer’s perspective, the downturn has made me acutely aware of the value modern marketers bring to the party in both good times and bad. Though the technology and approaches will continue to change as an even faster rate and you need to keep up as your skills, tools and techniques are making a positive difference to your colleagues and your customers.

So what has the downturn taught you? Do let me know your thoughts by leaving a comment below and watch this space as I’ll be creating a new blog and site to support the development of modern marketers.

Further information

Full video presentation of Chris Gentle, Partner for Insight and Research, Deloitte, 29 April 2014: How UK big businesses are planning to increase investment.