While there appear to be signs of improvement across financial markets, there is still uncertainty around how long it may take consumers to recover. This lack of clarity has left not only consumers having to make drastic lifestyle changes but also companies.

Is frugality here to stay and how do marketers deal with this potential change in consumer behavior? That was the focus of an article published today in AdAge, and something we’ve spoken about in recent blog postings and published articles.

Knowing your customers is more important than ever given that they may be easily tempted to switch brands, products or services due to shifting priorities. There are simple but effective steps that can be taken to address this:

1) Talk to your customers
It’s critical to better understand how customers perceive that their needs have evolved, how they feel their behavior may shift in the future, and what key factors impact them the most. Comparing these findings to actual performance data can provide insights on whether customer feedback is consistent with their behavior.

2) Adjust your segmentation
Knowing whether your customers have changed can improve the return on your marketing investments by knowing which segments should be allocated more funding at this time. You may also discover that your segmentation scheme requires significant changes, which may affect one or more aspects of your marketing process, including messaging and touchpoints.

3) Develop tailored messaging
Making these first two steps real can start with messaging. More and more companies are moving away from uniform communications because it’s simply more effective to speak to customers when the message is highly relevant to them.

Beyond these steps outlined in this posting it may be necessary to alter relevant marketing elements such as channels and touchpoints. Some channels may be more effective for some messages and some touchpoints may be more relevant for certain customer segments.

Whatever you decide to do, don’t forget that your customers need to come first.

At CMG we stress collaboration and teamwork both when helping our clients solve problems and when turning inward to find opportunities for our own business. One of the nice perks of operating this way is that you have plenty of stimulation to get the wheels turning when a thorny issue arises (and the support to keep you honest). It’s a benefit of working across a variety of industries and a wide range of marketing disciplines as well. We learn from working with clients in one industry and get to apply those ideas to clients in another. And for most of us, that kind of diversity is one of the big draws of working in consulting.

What we’ve learned through our conversations with CMO’s (as part of our CMO Agenda research) and through our experience helping companies is that this type of knowledge and inspiration is truly coveted by marketing leaders. It’s a big part of what led us to kick off our CMO Agenda research, now in its second phase. We are not only getting the opportunity to have fascinating conversations that provide insight and inspiration to our team, but we’re able to pass on the ideas and learnings from participating senior marketers to their peers and our clients.

Here’s an article we published with the CMO Council in their monthly e-journal Marketing Maginified that explores seven thought starters for active leaders looking to transform their organizations. These concepts flowed both from our CMO research and our work, and we hope they spark an idea or two for you.

You can find out more about the first phase of our CMO Agenda research effort by reading our executive summary or requesting a copy of the full report.

What is the “right” role of the chief marketing officer (CMO) and by extension, marketing, within an organization? Should marketing have a seat at the executive table? Should the CMO lead or follow in the pursuit of strategic initiatives? Do the answers to these questions vary depending on industry, company size and type, etc.? How has marketing changed over the last 10 years?  And what will the next 10 years bring?

In talking with more than 30 CMOs and lead marketers from mid-sized organizations to Fortune 500 companies across a variety of industries, we found commonalities in practice and differing perspectives on the role marketing can and should play within the organization. Some of the most innovative and cutting edge marketers we spoke with articulated the lead marketing position as a transformative role, working as both a team member and an agent of change within the c-suite.

Our executive research summary provides what we hope is a short but provocative look into the day-to-day world of today’s lead marketers.  We also summarize and combine the research learnings with our experience in a list of thoughts and ideas intended to spark discussion and action.  Click here to sign up for a free copy of our full research report.

There’s a reason why we kicked off our blog with a focus on customers. Given tightening budgets, customers – both consumers and businesses – are changing the way they behave. While companies may be tempted to reduce spend in market research, it doesn’t mean that they should stop from listening to customers.

A recent article I read made a few very good suggestions on how to gain customer insights at little cost. Beyond these recommendations we’d encourage organizations to take advantage of internal “listening posts” to activate insights which are being collected but not necessarily shared. Customer care, for example, can be a gold mine for untapped insights. While disposition reports are generated, it can be more useful to monitor customer service calls as well as speaking directly to agents on a regular basis since they hear what customers are saying about you all day long.

Another way to outreach to customers is through new channels like mobile applications. Looking up basketball scores on ESPN on my iPhone, I was welcomed with a special message for recruiting focus group participants to provide input on the ESPN mobile application. I thought this was a great way to reaching out to users who are more likely to be engaged with ESPN.

Finally, tapping user groups through social media like Linkedin, Facebook and Twitter can be other great platforms to actively engage customers rather than just getting feedback.

This is by no means a complete list, but it’s a good exercise that organizations could go through in searching for alternative market research solutions on less coin.