DaveStevensNow

The B2B Marketing Magpie

June 10, 2019

In La Gazza Ladra, an 1817 opera by Gioachino Rossini, servant Ninetta is taken to the scaffold for the theft of silver-ware, a theft really perpetrated by a magpie attracted to something shiny and new.

There’s a magpie gene in marketers too. And while the scaffold is perhaps a bit too drastic a reaction to such behaviour, we need to think about ways of keeping our gene in check.

Marketers are quick to change things and look to the new. But new isn’t always the right choice. Last week, LinkedIn suggested that successful, replicable campaigns and slogans don’t wear out, but rather “wear in”. That is, businesses reap the reward from the familiarity of the old. Some of the biggest B2B brands of 2019 have been successful precisely because they have resisted the urge for change and played the long game. IBM hasn’t changed its logo since 1972 and has sponsored the Masters since 1996. UPS has used the stability of its brand colours to support its advertising slogan “What can Brown do for you?” Wells Fargo has had the same brand mark for more than ten years. And in my own work where I’ve been looking to the branding of places, I’ve tried to go with names that have a history of association with the location already rather than manufacturing something new and potentially less authentic and grounding.

We are quick to jump to the next big thing. This weekend’s marketing news was full of excitement around the potential of digital experience platforms (a new concept with an exciting and shiny new acronym “DXP”) that allow us to spread our messaging across more digital channels. But it’s surely better for marketers not to be on every digital channel? We should just be on those channels where our customers are. We should choose where to focus rather than spreading our budgets and teams too thinly. We shouldn’t invest in technology to avoid making a sound decision.

If there’s a bandwagon to jump on, we jump on it.

Of course, change isn’t always bad. Just as no change isn’t always good.

I guess at the end of the day I’m just calling for a balance. Let’s not immediately jump to the next new thing and ditch the old. Let’s stop. Take a breath. And think.

“The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.” George Bernard Shaw

June 4, 2019

Great marketing is about understanding your audience’s needs and preparing the interactions that will respond to them. Here are four things for B2B marketers to think about in preparing those interactions.

First, build pauses into their customer messaging to allow their audience to reflect. That’s pauses between key parts of your messaging, between your messages, and during your messages. Some parts of the sales process will go fast and others slow. Pace is important and the channels that marketers use operate at different speeds. We speak at 125-145 words per minute but we read at 400-600 words per minute for example.

Visuals can be important: more than 90% of our sensory input is through our eyes and two-thirds of our brain is devoted to processing visual signals. Tweets with images, for example, receive up to three times the engagement of those without and articles with images receive more than 90% more views. According to Hubspot, four times as many customers would prefer to watch a video about a product than read about it.

Be authentic in the way you get your point across. A recent survey by Slideshare found that 80% of consumers thought that authenticity content was the most influential factor in their decision to become a follower of a particular brand.

Finally, B2B marketers use simple words and avoid jargon and business terminology. There’s a great periodic table of some of the words to steer away from here:- https://radix-communications.com/content/uploads/2016/07/The-periodic-table-of-B2B-marketing-cliches-full-sized.png.

By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail…

June 3, 2019

A good B2B Marketer goes beyond the brochure, the website, the direct mail and into every interaction that their business has with a customer. Every interaction is important because every interaction has the potential to be a moment of truth that could acquire, retain, or lose a customer. So B2B marketers need to ensure that their businesses are prepared.

Preparation is about ensuring your firm has involved the right people from your business, your partners, and your suppliers in helping to plan the customer interaction.

Find out who the customer interaction is with. Understand the customer’s role, needs, and behavioural type. Consider what the organisation’s decision-making process is and who else might be involved. Find out how the customer perceives your business. Think about lessons you can learn from your competitors.

Consider how your business’s offering is appropriate to the customer. How can your business offer to fulfil their needs? What are your business’s benefits that will appeal to the customer? What is the story that the customer will take away from the interaction with your business?

Practice the interaction in advance. Get an audience to test it out. Think about the appropriate pace, eye contact, body language, syntax. What questions might you be asked?

After the interaction, get some feedback from your customer. Agree the next steps and who within your business is responsible for them. And ensure that your messaging remains consistent into those next steps.

Preparation is the key theme running through all of this.

Why B2B Marketing makes me feel like Indiana Jones

May 24, 2019

Look I’m clearly no Harrison Ford. I haven’t uncovered any implausibly powerful religious artefacts recently, fought off any Nazis, or raced through any abandoned mine shafts. But occasionally – when things are going well – the B2B Marketing profession makes me feel just like Indiana Jones.

That’s because B2B marketers are in the business of digging to uncover the story of the business or product or service that we can tell to our target markets. It’s the story that differentiates the business, product, or service from the competition. It’s the story that explains why the customer should buy.

In Indiana Jones’ profession of archaeology, excavation is the exposure and recording of remains. This process takes time. And it takes care. Sediments are extracted in very thin layers, sifted in detail, then measured and recorded. So it is with B2B marketing stories. They take time and care to create. When we start uncovering the story, we are not really sure what we are uncovering. Then we reveal a part of it. Gradually the story starts revealing itself. And we know better where and how to dig as we know more.

Not everything an archaeologist uncovers relates to the find they are working on. There are the 21st century beer bottle tops to contend with amongst the hoard. The temptation to use everything you find even if it doesn’t fit is strong. After all you worked hard to dig it up! But if you are discerning and rigorous in your analysis of each piece and if you compare it to bits you’ve already found you can see if it’s a match. So in story-telling. Not every fact you uncover should be part of the best story you can tell. However difficult it was to find the fact in the first place.

For every business, product, or service, there is a compelling story to be told. It just needs to be discovered and set free.

What’s in a name?

May 23, 2019

I sometimes find myself helping businesses that use an abundance of naming conventions for their companies, products, and services. Where the target market for all these names is the same, using a large number of names in your marketing simply confuses your customers. Simplification rules. Always.

It’s always worth thinking about differential advantage where your target market is the same. There’s value in using company name alone where your target market is the same and there is no differential advantage. Think McKinsey – which brands everything as “McKinsey”.

Alternatively where your target market is the same but there is differential advantage, consider using the company name to endorse the product brand. Think Cadbury’s Flake and Cadbury’s Twirl. Here the target market is the same: everyone who enjoys chocolate. That’s covered by the company name. There is differential advantage though around the texture of the chocolate. Flake is more crumbly than Twirl. So there is value to customers in having a product name as well as a company name. Product name though gets more attention than company name in these circumstances.

Another example is of Apple iPad and Apple iPhone. The target market is the same: everyone who wants handheld devices. But there is differential advantage based on the location of the user. So company name combined with a more emphasised product name adds value to the customer.

Google offers products that stray across target markets and advantages. Google AdWords and Google Adsense have similar target markets for advertising products but differential advantage. So company name and product name are used together with the emphasis on the latter. Compare that with YouTube and Android. Here Google uses a unique brand name because the target markets are different and there is differential advantage. Or look at Google Maps and Google Apps. Here a company name and grade are used to reflect a similar target market and no differential advantage.

It’s interesting to look at how the most valuable brands in the world apply their branding strategies. Apple tends to use their company name as an endorsement to their product brand (Apple iPad). But not always (Apple TV). Microsoft do the same (Microsoft Office, Microsoft Xbox, Microsoft Windows). Google tend to add company name to product name. But not always (Android). Coca-Cola use their company name on the packaging of different product brands. Samsung use their company name to endorse their product. As does Toyota.

There’s a lot of strategic thinking to put into what names your business uses and how.

Even my blog is asking me for my goals for the year…

May 22, 2019

It’s the time of year when businesses like to ask for your objectives for the year. How they do this varies from organisation to organisation. Sometimes it’s a tick-box exercise run by the HR team. Sometimes there’s a protracted exercise to ensure that objectives cascade down or up the business hierarchy so that your goals are a sub-set of your line manager’s and your team take a sub-set of your’s. Sometimes it’s a bit more informal with goals scribbled on the back of a beer-mat during the latest team social.

This demand for objectives seems to be catching on outside of business as well. When I booked a venue for a big family reunion at the weekend, the venue organisers asked me for my objectives. My gym trainer asked me on Friday about my goals for the next session. I even received an e-mail last night from WordPress asking me what goals I have for my blog this year.

And I do think that when it comes to B2B marketing, having objectives is pretty important. I’ve worked for organisations where I’ve introduced marketing planning and objective-setting processes myself where there were none before. A good marketing objective-setting process needs to tie marketing back to business goals and integrate marketing team work with that of other departments in the organisation. A healthy business is made up of functions with different agendas but interdependent goals. A good objective will be specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, targeted and timed so forcing the marketer to really focus in on what needs to be done and why.

But objective-setting in marketing is a balancing act.

Let’s consider the process of annual objective-setting first. This assumes that you are already aware of all of the things in society, in the market, or in your business that could affect what your objective is, its priority, its measurability and achievability now. But you don’t. Just six months ago, who could have predicted the impact of Extinction Rebellion on public perceptions? Who would have said that the UK would be taking part in European elections tomorrow? Change and uncertainty are part of life. As marketers, our job is not to resist them but to build the capability to take them on board and work with them. So be prepared to adjust your objectives as you go.

Objectives bring a healthy focus for a marketing team, but they can also have an unhealthy impact on your team’s culture. Objectives suggest an acceptable outcome, but we need to be careful that this does not lead to fear of failure in your team. Fear of failure discourages innovation and creativity. Because it’s okay to fail. You’ll never transform or change your business for the better without failing regularly. And that’s fine. And your team need to know that’s fine too. Try stuff out. Learn. I think it’s important to foster a sense of trust in the marketing team around you that it’s fine to try new things and repeat those that work.

Be wary of setting too many objectives. Objectives can be restricting as well as focusing. You need to give space for the unexpected, for learning, for creating.

Finally don’t confuse the inputs and outputs with the marketing objective. For example, creating a better, easier and more efficient process for developing advertising might be a useful activity but the objective is to sell your product.

So, thank you WordPress, I will set some goals for my blog. I want to write a blog that B2B marketers want to read. I think that means writing about great B2B marketing, story-telling, branding, and digital and great B2B marketing teams. Where greatness delivers strong commercial outcomes for business. But I reserve the right to change that if circumstances dictate. And I may sometimes fail.

How I became a Marketer at the age of ten

May 10, 2019

My story as a Marketer started when I was ten years old.

When I was ten, I got an illness which ate away at my hip sockets and left me in a wheelchair for five years. I was kicked out of my first school because they could not handle having a disabled person as a student. These were less enlightened times. But my parents were brilliant and found me a replacement school that was up to taking on a wheelchair.

Yet this new school came with a challenge built in. It was constructed on three levels connected by steep flights of narrow stairs. And classes were conducted across all three levels. Each class lasted 40 minutes. So every 40 minutes, I needed to get from a classroom on one level to a classroom on another. And do so in a timely way. Otherwise I’d miss the lesson. But I was stuck in a metal chair. I couldn’t make the journey myself because I couldn’t move my legs.

So I had to persuade the children in my class to club together and push my wheelchair to the staircase, hold off traffic from other users of the stairwells, carry me in my wheelchair up the steep stairs, push my chair to the next classroom all in time for the next class to begin. And thus I needed a marketing campaign to populate a rota of teams of pupils to help get me to the class on time. I ran poster campaigns, newsletters, prize draws. I even got the local tv station on board to give my volunteers a chance of stardom.

That’s how my story starts. My first marketing campaign. Today, I tell the story of other businesses so that they can clearly explain what they do, why they are different from the rest, and why customers should buy their products and services. That story uses emotion to engage its target audience and connect them with the business. It needs plot and tension, and a game-changing solution. And it then needs lots of different marketing channels to get that message across. And we need to build up an organisation’s capability to keep doing that in an ongoing and systematic way. Marketers like to call it branding… but it’s really about helping a business better deliver its objectives.

If a business isn’t attracting the type of customer it wants or isn’t standing out from the crowd, it’s worth thinking about branding. Neither of these problems is uncommon. Just 14% of B2B buyers say they perceive a real difference in the B2B supplier offerings they have to choose from.

And branding applies as much in the B2B space as in the B2C. B2B decision making these days is an emotional as well as a rational process. Yet in a recent survey, 31% of prospective B2B customers thought that their B2B brands currently provided an emotional connection with them.

Plenty of B2B companies are starting to do branding. Think a of the HP campaign to launch Sprout that tells the story of hands to market PCs. Think of GE on Instagram telling the story of the people behind the technology. Think of Gusto’s daily personalised emails. And branding can apply to companies as much as products and services and single campaigns.

In fact it’s a good way of getting to the happily ever after.

Marketing Outside of the Box

May 9, 2019

Those who have experienced my handwriting will be delighted to hear that I have started to learn to draw. And that’s been a revelation.

I’ve learned that I haven’t been drawing what I’ve been looking at. I’m not seeing what is really there.

Let me explain. From an early age, our brains have learned to assume so much about their environment. We collect models of what things look like, how things behave, how to think. And that means we naturally don’t draw what we see. Instead we draw what we think we see.

My drawing teacher tackles this by placing objects for drawing upside down so that we see its real shape rather than making assumptions about a familiar or recognisable thing. In this way the brain does not impose its model of what the object looks like. Similarly we are taught to focus on the space around an object rather than the object itself. For example we are asked to draw the space between the legs of a table rather than the table itself.

We draw poorly something we know because we know what it is supposed to look like. We have a mental model already, and we draw that rather than what is really there. If we are asked to produce the space between the table legs, it is easier to get the proportions of the table right and the table we draw looks more realistic. The brain has assigned no meaning to the space between the table legs and so does not try to correct our mental model.

The lesson is to see shapes as they are and not as the brain models them.

We make the same kind of assumptions when we try to be creative in our marketing. And perhaps we need instead to let go. We need to trust in our own innate creativity and not jump to our conventional models. One of the best ways of fostering creativity in your marketing is to take the barriers off the traditional ways of thinking about things.

Are Marketing Agencies bad at marketing themselves?

May 7, 2019

In the last hour of the working day on Friday, I received 43 e-mails from marketing agencies soliciting work and three phone calls. I’m not sure how representative of a typical hour in a typical week this figure is. Nor am I sure how much of this is the tip of the iceberg: I’ve not checked spam filters, or consulted with colleagues receiving contact directed at me. None of these communications was personalised to my business, my role, or the challenges I face.

Marketing and business development are difficult. I get it. I do the job. But there’s no reason to do a difficult job so poorly. Especially if you are offering marketing and business development services.

Let’s deal with the timing first. 4pm on a Friday is a poor time to contact me as I’m usually trying to finish up a task. And I’m not alone. Most studies suggest mid morning or late evening on Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday are the best time to get attention whether by email or phone. And unlike the contacts I had, it’s better to combine email and call rather than doing one or the other. This is classic B2B direct marketing but few businesses seem to get it right.

Thinking of the message next. A good message requires some engagement with your target audience. So messages that focus on agency and not on me won’t get very far. And that doesn’t mean simply cutting and pasting my job title into your email. Think carefully about what your audience is looking for and take time to shape the message for each of your targets. What’s in it for me? When sculpting a message, it’s about quality not quantity.

Once this is done, consider the subject title of your message and make sure the personalisation you’ve done for the body copy is reflected here. If you take the time to work on the message, the reader is more likely to take the time to consider what you have to say.

So far so 101. The real question for me is why marketing and business development agencies are so bad at marketing themselves? Maybe the marketing experts at agencies don’t do the marketing of the agency? Perhaps the marketing departments at agencies have the wrong objectives or metrics? Perhaps I’m looking at a narrow band of cold approaches and I should be taking into account the agencies which take the time to build relationships face to face rather than tarring everyone with the same brush? Or maybe my business is just not valued enough?

What do others think?

FinTech isn’t about the Tech. Or the Fin. It’s about Marketing.

May 3, 2019

At a time when Brand Britain is taking a pounding across the globe, it’s rather nice to see a report launched celebrating a Brand Britain success story. This week, the UK Government issues a state of the nation report into UK FinTech.

And the report paints the picture of a sector in rude health. There are more than 1600 FinTech firms now in the UK and estimates suggest that this will more than double by 2030. London has the world’s highest concentration of financial and professional service firms.

And critically rather than just celebrating success, the report gives budding entrepreneurs some guidance on what to do to join the sector themselves.

The report delves into the reasons for UK success in FinTech: connectivity, appetite for risk, emerging tech, the right skills among employees, favourable regulation. But aside from an honourable mention in a piece by Zopa’s Giles Andrews, there’s no mention made at all of what must surely be the key factor in success to date.

The UK is known as one of the world’s leading centres for marketing. For marketing to thrive, you need a clear goal and a strong identity, a culture of honesty and candour, experience of success and failure, an understanding of the invisible and unspoken. You need a strong strategy and you need a clear approach to how to segment and target your market and how to position your offering to the same. The UK FinTech sector has all that.

So look at the good marketing that can result. Think SoFi’s user-friendly web comms, the event programme run by Money 20/20, WePay’s ice cube stunt, the video advertising of Moneysupermarket.com…

I was struck in the foreword to the report by Charlotte Crosswell, CEO of Innovate Finance by the statement that the FinTech sector “is as much about the ‘Tech” as it is the ‘Fin’”. I think it’s about the Marketing too.

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